The chief executive of Ryanair Michael O\u2019Leary has \u201cunreservedly\u201d apologised for the \u201cconsiderable upset and offence\u201d caused after he compared rival airliners to rapists at a press briefing last week.<\/p>\n
His apology on Friday evening came after more than a week of sustained pressure from advocacy groups and fierce criticism from politicians, including the Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin over the comparison.<\/p>\n
It was welcomed by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre which expressed the hope that it would \u201cpromote a greater public understanding of the impact language can have\u201d.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Leary\u2019s statement was issued despite the fact that he had previously stood over his comments and suggested he had no reason to apologise. <\/p>\n
It marks one of the very rare occasions over his decades long period at the helm of the the largest and most profitable airline in Europe that he has reversed a previously held position and admitted that, in no uncertain terms, he made a mistake. <\/p>\n
In the message O\u2019Leary said that over recent days he had had a series of conversations with family and friends inside and outside of the airline and had realised that what he had said had caused \u201cconsiderable upset and offence\u201d.<\/p>\n
He apologised \u201csincerely and unreservedly\u201d to people, especially survivors of sexual violence and rape.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast week at a press conference in Dublin, I used the term rapists to describe the high fares of our competitor airlines. I was quizzed by the press if I was trivialising rape,\u201d he told Virgin Media News.<\/p>\n
\u201cI replied by asserting my firm belief that rape is a heinous and terrible crime which cannot be trivialised. I believe I couldn\u2019t have been clearer in this regard.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn conversations with family and friends, both inside and outside Ryanair, over the last 10 days, I have come to realise, however, that the word I used so carelessly has caused considerable upset and offence to a wide number of people, especially victims and survivors.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Leary said that he wanted \u201dto apologise, sincerely and unreservedly, to those people, especially to the survivors. I am truly sorry for the offence and upset I have caused you by my careless use of those words. It won\u2019t happen again.”<\/p>\n
He added that he would \u201ctry to learn from this mistake and do better in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Leary had previously rejected calls for an apology from Dublin Rape Crisis Centre chief executive Rachel Morrogh, who accused him of trivialising rape ahead of his airline\u2019s annual general meeting in Dublin last Thursday.<\/p>\n
At that press briefing he had claimed rising air travel prices at other airlines would mean passengers switch to Ryanair.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou might find some people will choose not to fly with Ryanair \u2013 but you know they\u2019ll be overrun with the people abandoning Aer Lingus, Lufthansa, BA, and others desperate to get to Ryanair\u2019s low fares because they can\u2019t afford to fly with the high-fare rapists around Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he was subsequently asked if such language was appropriate he replied: \u201cAbsolutely.\u201d He stressed that rape was a \u201cterrible crime\u201d but rejected any assertion that he had trivialised it.<\/p>\n
Morrogh said the \u201cDublin Rape Crisis Centre welcomed his apology and his \u201drecognition that his comments caused concern and hurt to people who have been raped as well as to their families and friends. <\/p>\n
She expressed the \u201chope [that his] apology helps promote a greater public understanding of the impact language can have and the harm that trivialising sexual violence can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
She stressed that \u201cwords matter and positive leadership really matters as well, so we view Mr O\u2019Leary\u2019s apology as being very important. We remain committed to and focused on ensuring that the experiences of victims and survivors are treated with the seriousness, dignity and respect they deserve.\u201d -Additional reporting PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The chief executive of Ryanair Michael O\u2019Leary has \u201cunreservedly\u201d apologised for the \u201cconsiderable upset and offence\u201d caused after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,895,61,60,10726,1843,1899],"class_list":["post-628906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-fianna-fail","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-michael-oleary","tag-micheal-martin","tag-ryanair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}