Tony Ryan founded Ryanair in 1986 with just a single 15-seat passenger aircraft and saw it grow within 20 years into Europe’s largest low-cost airline. Born Thomas Anthony Ryan in Thurles, Co Tipperary, on February 2, 1936, he was educated at the local Christian Brothers school. His father, Martin, a train driver, died when he was 18, ending his hopes of going to university. Instead, he joined Aer Lingus as a dispatch clerk, and then management trainee, to support his mother and the younger children.
Tony Ryan. "People say I'm arrogant and sure I am, but you should see those arrogant sons of bitches on Wall Street."
He always liked to say that the inspiration to go into business on his own account came to him on an evening in 1974, when he watched the painstaking care with which a South-East Asian street food vendor went about the preparation and selling of his products. “I felt it a pity that such marketing, technical talent and energy was devoted to a process which produced a mere penny. Then and there, I determined that when I went into business on my own account, I would apply my energies to developing and marketing a big-ticket product which could sell for vastly more.”
By the early 1970s, he had become leasing manager for Aer Lingus, responsible for finding profitable uses for aircraft surplus to requirements in the cyclical downturn following the first oil-price shock. In 1974, he set up Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA) to lease aircraft. He put in just £5,000 of his own money, arranging support from Aer Lingus and the merchant bank, Guinness Peat.
It turned into a huge success as air travel revived and the leasing model allowed second-tier airlines to grow without requiring massive capital. Starting with a second-hand Boeing 737, by 1991 GPA had a turnover of more than $2 billion. Air Canada took a third share and Tony Ryan assembled high profile directors – including former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.
But it remained Ryan’s business. He held an 8% stake and directed strategy. In 1990, GPA announced orders for 700 aircraft over the next decade. But in 1992 came the spectacular collapse. A much-hyped international flotation was planned, but the banks, spooked by a recessionary downturn and the effects of the first Gulf war, failed to come up with the money. In 1993, most of the business was sold to General Electric of the US at a fraction of its earlier multiples. Ryan stepped down, but eventually banked about €55m from the sale of the rump, renamed AerFi.
He said of this bruising experience: “People say I’m arrogant and sure I am, but you should see those arrogant sons of bitches on Wall Street.”
Meanwhile, with two partners, Liam Lonergan and Christy Ryan, he launched Ryanair in 1985. Starting with a 15-seater aircraft flying from Waterford to Gatwick, the small airline was making only steady progress. Again, Tony Ryan showed himself a shrewd judge of people. He promoted the abrasive and uncompromising Michael O’Leary to chief operating officer in 1993 and then chief executive, in return for a share in the airline. O’Leary set to work creating a no-frills airline, shocking even the Ryan family with his decision to do away with food service, and rapidly expanded across Europe with a network of previously under-used airfields.
Commercially, it went from strength to strength, employing almost 5,000 people and operating more than 550 routes. After it was floated on the stock exchange in 1997, the Ryan family made more than a £100m through the sale of some of their shares.
Tony Ryan stepped down from active involvement as chairman in 1998, though he later extended his aviation interests with 16% of Tiger Airways, a Singapore low-cost operator, formed in 2003.
Although technically resident in Monaco, he pursued interests such as horse-breeding and farming in Dolla, Co Tipperary. A particular interest was the introduction of new strains of cattle into Ireland, including his own prize winning Blonde d’Aquitaine herd.
He owned homes in Tipperary, Dublin, London. He also owned stud farms in Kentucky, the farm on Ibiza and an apartment in the luxury La Rocamar building in Monaco, where he became a tax exile. In 2001, he bought the Bordeaux vineyard Chateau Lascombes.
He bought the Lyons Demesne near Celbridge in Co Kildare, from Michael Smurfit. After the break up of his marriage to Mairead, he had a six-year relationship with Miranda Guinness who had been married to Lord Iveagh. Her expertise in interior design guided him through the restoration of the 18th century manor
His final relationship was with Martine Head, daughter of well-known French horse trainer Alec Head.
He encouraged marine studies and aquaculture, donating the Martin Ryan Marine Science Institute in Galway, as well as funding the Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurship at Dublin City University. He received an honorary doctorate (economic science) from the University of Limerick in 1992.
He had three sons from his marriage to Mairead: Cathal, who died shortly after his father, Declan and Shane..
Thomas Anthony (Tony) Ryan died after a long illness on October 3, 2007, aged 71.