Say what you like about O’Leary, but he’s a genius at getting his face in the papers.

Personally, I don’t think that the pay-per-piss proposal is anything other than a publicity stunt. I don’t think that they’re seriously considering it, for the simple reason that it’d be a nightmare to re-engineer the fleet with reliable coin-operated doors, and then another nightmare to get policies in place to deal with non compliance.

But, really, what’s the fuss? In the centre of town, public toilets require a nominal fee to use. And Ryanair are mostly very short haul – I’m fairly sure that 95% of the people on board can survive without having a whizz for most of their flights. It’s not an infringement of rights, because nobody is forcing anyone on board.

Here’s the thing: Ryanair are cheap. And everyone loves cheap. The problem arises because Ryanair are unashamedly cheap; they’re honest about the fact that they pinch the pennies with the aim of attracting customers and making money. They revel in the fact that they don’t have to subscribe to the customer is always right ethos, because the customer will come back because their prices are so good.

Anyway, I’ve not found them to be so bad, thus far. I’ve flown with them maybe thirty times in the last year, and because I know what I’m paying for, I’m hapy with what I’ve got. Whereas when I’ve flown with FlyBe (maybe three times the price), I’m getting less service. When I’ve flown with BA (back in the old days), I was disappointed. EasyJet is, to my mind, slightly less comfortable than Ryanair. And bmi is expensive and feels cheap.

All airlines on short haul routes are a bit pants and treat their economy passangers like cattle. But all the others pretend otherwise. Who is the pain in that scenario, do you think?

‘course, on past experience you can expect that my next experience on the cheap-as-chips service will be something shocking. And I’ll then spout forth a unbelievable amount of venom. But that’ll be then, and this is now…