A Critical Battle as Airline Hits Back

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Even Ryanair's critics are united in backing the company's record on safety
The Z Team is the name Michael O'Leary gives to his trusted lieutenants, Ryanair's most senior executives. In the course of three years' research for the book Michael O'Leary: A Life in Full  written by the late Alan Ruddock  journalist Laura Noonan came across The Z Team time and again.

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"There is no shortage of Z meetings," she says, "and while O'Leary will argue over the merits of spending money on a paper clip, he never quibbles when someone says money needs to be spent on anything to do with safety.

"It is a subject he takes with the utmost seriousness and their record is unblemished."

The Z Team was likely to have been busy on Tuesday morning. The night before, Channel 4 questioned Ryanair's commitment to safety. A Dispatches documentary made serious allegations about the airline's fuel usage policy, which it suggested could put passengers' lives at risk.

And the programme  Ryanair: Secrets from the Cockpit  claimed a significant proportion of the airline's pilots felt the safety policy was "non-transparent" and were uncomfortable raising safety issues.

Ryanair reacted swiftly. John Goss, the veteran Ryanair pilot who was interviewed by Dispatches, was dismissed "with immediate effect" on Wednesday.

And O'Leary said he would sue Channel 4 for its "false and defamatory claims" which "wrongly impugn and smear Ryanair's outstanding 29-year safety record based on nothing more than anonymous hearsay".

Noonan is not surprised that O'Leary has taken such action. "Ryanair say safety is their number one priority and it has to be because if it experiences an air disaster, it is likely to have greater difficulty recovering from it than the likes of Aer Lingus would.