Ryanair success - Worthy of pride

IF Ryanair were a TV cartoon it might be called The Little Airline That Could.

But there is nothing little about the first EU airline to carry more than one billion passengers, although its boss, Michael O’Leary, occasionally cuts a cartoonish figure as part of his public persona.

From its small beginnings in 1985 with turboprop plane flying between Waterford and Gatwick airport in London, Ryanair has grown to be Europe’s largest carrier and one of the biggest in the world.