George S. May Business Blog

Ryanair “pound for a pee” is no joke

You may remember, a while back I wrote a short piece on the rumor of discount airline, Ryanair, installing the pound to pee program. As a reminder, CEO Michael O’Leary (pictured left) said in an interview that he had been entertaining the idea of making customers pay a pound o use the bathroom. It came across, at least I thought, as a joke originally. But not so fast. The New York Times has reported that in fact the “pound for a pee” charge may be up and running sooner than later.

“Faced with an annual loss for the first time in two decades, Ryanair, the European budget airline, confirmed on Tuesday that it plans to start charging passengers for the luxury of using the toilet on its jets.

Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s outspoken chief executive, told The Guardian that the airline plans to ask Boeing to add a credit-card reader to toilet locks and wants to reconfigure its 737-800 jets, adding space for six additional seats by removing two of the three toilets.”

O’Leary added, and this is a good point, that the majority of Ryanair flights are up in the air for a very short, so the bathrooms aren’t used as much as other airlines with longer routes.

“We are flying aircraft on an average flight time of one hour around Europe,” Mr. O’Leary argued, “what the hell do we need three toilets for?”

Mr. O’Leary added that Boeing’s research department should have time to focus on his new toilet concept soon, since the “war in Iraq and Afghanistan is winding down.”

Related posts:

1. British pound getting ‘pounded’ — talks of collapse ensue As Britain’s government deficit climbs, many speculate that weak GDP growth (with no plan on the table for correction) will eventually lead to the collapse...


2. British Airways to introduce ANOTHER new charge to passengers First new charges for luggage under the plane, next new charges for carry-ons, next new charges for your pets…Pile on these new charges, it seems...