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Is Ryanair The World's Crassest Airline?

Ryanair still hasn't decided if and when it'll start offering those super-cheap transatlantic fares, but the carrier just announced that it made $275 million in profit over the first half of 2008. Though that number was way down compared to last year's haul, Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary was confident enough in his own carrier to say it would outlast the five or six more European airlines he thinks will go bust before Christmas.

He also added that Europe "needed a recession" and predicted that by the end of it the Continent would have just four airlines: British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France and, obviously, Ryanair.

It'd be easy to write this off as the bloviating of a large-than-life CEO--but Ryanair's accountants also signed off on zingers like these:

In the UK we continue to call for the removal of Mr. Harry Bush, the hopeless CAA regulator, as well as the sale of Stansted by the BAA monopoly. Mr. Bush has rubber stamped almost all of the BAA’s cost increases and [capital expenditure] proposals including their crazy plan to waste £4bn on Terminal 2 despite the unanimous opposition of all Stansted airline users to this gold plated Taj Mahal.

After getting slammed like this, Bush might want to sign onto the Facebook group "Ryanair: A Love/Hate Relationship."

Related Stories:
· Ryanair's First Half of 2008 Financial Results [Official Site]
· Ryanair Boss Predicts Airline Slump [PA]
· Blame Ryanair for the Most Annoying Song of 2008 [Jaunted]

[Photo: elward-photography]