Ryanair would be open to using Elon Musk's Starlink wifi on its planes in the future, its chief financial officer suggests, amid a spat between the Irish airline boss and the world's richest person.
The airline is looking at "whoever is best when technology and price are right" for onboard wifi, Neil Sorahan, Ryanair's chief financial officer, said.
Sorahan was speaking after an online spat between Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary and Musk, after O'Leary was asked to follow Lufthansa and British Airways in installing Starlink satellite internet technology on its fleet of 650 planes.
The CEO rejected the idea, saying adding antennas to planes would cause "2 per cent fuel drag", adding an extra $200m-$250m to its annual oil bill of $5bn.
Musk said the interpretation was "wrong" in a post on his X platform, leading to an exchange of insults, with each man calling the other an "idiot".
Sorahan said the spat was "good fun" and drove more people to Ryanair's website. O'Leary said last week that his spat with Musk had boosted bookings by 2 per cent to 3 per cent, after the company launched a "great idiot sale" campaign mocking the Tesla CEO, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes to be $788bn.
However, Sorahan added that onboard wifi was still a long way off for Ryanair. "I've been looking at wifi as long as I've been at Ryanair," the executive, who joined the airline in 2003, said. "There's still the fuel cost we'd have to absorb."
There are concerns that passengers may be less willing to pay for wifi on Ryanair's short-haul flights, which typically last between one and three hours.
The airline, which grew to become the biggest in Europe, upgraded its forecasts for passenger numbers, profit growth and fares on Monday. It now expects to carry 216m passengers by March 2027, and said average fares would rise by 7 per cent to 8 per cent this year, compared with a previous guidance of 7 per cent. Average fares rose by 4 per cent to €44 (£38) in its third quarter, which ended in December 2023.
Its profit after tax fell by 22 per cent to €115m in the third quarter, after a €85m charge for the Italian competition authority, which the company is appealing. However, it expects profit after tax to be between €2.13bn and €2.23bn for its full year.
The airline said delivery of Boeings was running well compared with the previous year, when the plane manufacturer struggled to deliver planes on time. It said the last four Max 8 models would be delivered by the end of February, and the new Max 10 would join Ryanair's fleet in spring 2027.
Ryanair shares, which are listed in Dublin and New York, fell 1.7 per cent in European trading on Monday morning. They rose by more than 50 per cent last year.
