Overview
- Michael O’Leary reaffirmed Ryanair’s refusal to install Starlink, citing a roughly 2% fuel penalty and $200–$250 million in annual costs that he says do not fit its short‑haul, low‑fare model.
- SpaceX countered that its current low‑profile terminal raises fuel burn on a Boeing 737‑800 by about 0.3%, with Elon Musk arguing O’Leary miscalculated by a factor of ten and warning of customer loss to connected rivals.
- Ryanair’s official X account mocked a platform outage with “perhaps you need Wi‑Fi @elonmusk?”, prompting Musk to call O’Leary an “utter idiot,” urge his firing, and float buying the airline.
- Major carriers continue to roll out Starlink, including Lufthansa, United, Qatar Airways, Emirates, flydubai and others, reinforcing in‑flight connectivity as a competitive feature even as Ryanair opts out.
- Speculation that Musk could buy Ryanair has stayed in low‑conviction territory, with Polymarket traders recently assigning roughly a 9% probability to any takeover.