We knew that the head of Ryanair was used to making announcements. Michael O'Leary has once again lived up to his reputation, talking up figures that are ambitious to say the least in the columns of the Financial Times. "I'd like to increase [traffic] to 120 or even 130 million passengers", says Michael O'Leary, who intends to rely on a larger contingent of aircraft. Ryanair's CEO plans to buy 200 to 300 aircraft between 2015 and 2021, provided he can secure attractive fares. This is an explicit message, to say the least, to the three manufacturers involved in the negotiations - Boeing, Comac and Irkut - as well as to the traditional airlines threatened by these ambitions. Michael O'Leary is hoping to gain market share from the competition, in an economic climate which he sees as favourable to the development of low-cost airlines.
