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Michael O'Leary (born 1961) is chief executive of the low-cost airline Ryanair. He is one of the Republic of Ireland's richest people, with an estimated fortune of €636 million.^[1]

Michael O'Leary, second eldest in a family of six, was born in Kanturk, County Cork. He was educated at Clongowes Wood College, County Kildare. In 1979 he began a four-year Bachelor in Business Studies programme at Trinity College. He funded his studies by working as a barman at an uncle's hotel. He graduated in 1983 with a 2.1 grade (the press often wrongly affirms that O'Leary dropped out of university)^[2]. He then worked as an accountant with Stokes Kennedy Crowley (later known as KPMG). He worked towards qualifications as a tax consultant. He left after two years in 1985 to set up a newsagent's business in Walkinstown, and then a second one in Terenure, Dublin, "making a lot of money" as he has said^[2], over a two-year period.

In SKC, Michael O'Leary had met Tony Ryan, head of GPA (Guinness Peat Aviation, a leasing company), as one of the firm's clients, advising Ryan on his personal income tax. In 1987, Ryan hired O'Leary as his personal financial and tax advisor at the age of 26. Ryan's main interest at the time was in GPA. Ryanair was also being set up at the time. The fledgling airline at first followed a traditional business model, but quickly began to guzzle cash. O'Leary was sent to the USA to study the Southwest Airlines model, and returned - still as a personal advisor to Ryan - with many ideas.

O'Leary was Deputy Chief Executive of Ryanair between 1991 and 1994. In January 1994 he was promoted to chief executive of Ryanair. Under O'Leary's management, Ryanair further developed the low-cost model originated by Southwest Airlines.^[3] European consumers would likely attribute the birth of ancillary revenue and penny tickets to Europe's largest low fare airline. O'Leary may have described the inauguration of the ancillary revenue movement during a 2001 interview in the UK Sunday Times.^[4] "The other airlines are asking how they can put up fares. We are asking how we could get rid of them."

The unorthodox business model envisioned by O'Leary uses receipts from on board shopping, internet gaming, car hire and hotel bookings to eventually replace the revenue from selling airline seats. His radical idea catalyzed an industry-wide trend to coax more revenue from the profit-challenged airline business.

The deregulation of Ireland's major airports (beginning with the dissolution of Aer Rianta, Ireland's principal airport authority, in 2004), and the shake-up of traditional full-service airlines are among his best-known demands.^{[2] [5]} He has announced he intends to stand down from the Ryanair helm in "over the next few years" as the "nature of the airline has to change".

O'Leary has a somewhat fiery reputation among both his competitors in the airline industry and regulators. He has been described in many press articles as arrogant ^{[6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]} and has on numerous occasions stooped to gratuitous rudeness and foul language in his public statements ^{[12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]} His no-nonsense management style, extreme cost-cutting and meanness towards staff ^[16], provocative advertising ^[13], and his deliberate targeting and scathing criticisms of competitors, airport authorities, governments, and unions have become a hallmark. He has been reported to have been aggressive and hostile in dealings with a woman who was awarded free flights for life in 1988 ^[21] and abusive and prone to outbursts when dealing with staff and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern ^[22] . Recently he was forced to retract a claim that Ryanair had cut emissions of carbon dioxide by half over the past five years ^[23]. O'Leary has been reported to have impersonated a journalist in an attempt to find out what information an airport authority had passed on to a newspaper following a safety incident on a Ryanair flight ^[24]

In 2004 he purchased a hackney plate for his Mercedes-Benz to enable it to be classified as a taxi so that he could legally make use of Dublin's bus lanes to speed his car journeys around the city ^[25]. A press report suggested that he was stopped driving his own taxi. In 2005 the transport minister of the Republic of Ireland expressed concern at this abuse by O'Leary and others.^{[26] [27]}

O'Leary lives in Gigginstown House near Mullingar. He married Anita Farrell in 2003 and their first child, Matt, was born in September 2005 followed by another son, Luke, in April 2007. He breeds Aberdeen Angus cattle and horses at his Gigginstown House Stud^[28] in County Westmeath. In 2006, his horse War of Attrition won the Cheltenham Gold Cup ^[29]. This is the blue riband of steeplechasing. War of Attrition was trained by Michael 'Mouse' Morris at Fethard, County Tipperary, and ridden by Conor O'Dwyer

• Ryanair
• Fortune magazine name Michael O'Leary as the European Businessman of the Year