Battle Between easyJet and Ryanair Heats Up

The Ryanair boss, who is well known for being outspoken, Michael O’Leary, now faces a potential court battle with rival easyJet. This potential court battle was thrown into the mix of things after O’Leary published a newspaper advert depicting the easyJet founder, Sir Stelios Haji Ioannou, as Pinocchio. It is things like this that has earned Michael O’Leary the nickname “Mr. O’Really” with many media sources.

The advert centers around the publishing of easyJet’s punctuality figures. Ryanair claims that these figures are missing from the easyJet website. The Greek billionaire, Sir Ioannou, has accused O’Leary of libel and has threatened to go to the court unless he receives compensation.

Sir Ioannou said that with this advert, Mr. O’Leary has gone way too far and, thus, said that he must draw a line. He went on to say that this is libel action about his own reputation as an individual, not about the two airlines. He said that O’Leary has called him a liar, and that is something that Sir Ioannou claims that he is not. Thus, he seeks substantial damages.

Sir Ioannou went on to say that it’s about time someone was willing to spend the money to take this arrogant man (O’Leary) to court. He finished up by saying that he would see Michael in court.

Ryanair had accused easyJet of hiding its poor on time statistics. Ryanair went on to say that easyJet’s punctuality, when compared to Ryanair, is awful. EasyJet, on the other hand, has said that it has published its punctuality figures on an annual basis, in its annual report.