In the mid-1990s, much earlier in my career as an entrepreneur, I had the great privilege of getting to know Dr Tony Ryan reasonably well. He was a man of vision, energy and that particular Irish flair for seeing opportunity where others saw only obstacles.

When he founded Ryanair, it was a modest enough proposition at first, a small carrier connecting Ireland and the UK. But the seed he planted was profound. Michael O’Leary took that inheritance and transformed it into something that has changed the daily lived experience of millions across our continent.

What O’Leary has achieved with Ryanair does enormous credit to both men. It stands as a testament to what private enterprise, properly directed, can accomplish when it is allowed to serve ordinary people rather than being strangled by the ambitions of politicians.

The recent news that O’Leary has agreed to extend his stewardship of Ryanair well into his seventies, with the possibility of a substantial reward, has prompted the usual chorus of commentary. Some will grumble. Others will reach for envy disguised as concern about inequality. I say plainly: good. He merits it.

If ever a businessman has earned the fruits of his labour on this scale, it is Michael O’Leary. He did not inherit a state monopoly or cosy himself up to regulators for subsidies and protections. He took a struggling airline, applied relentless discipline, innovation and a ruthless focus on the customer, and turned it into Europe’s largest carrier by passenger numbers.

In doing so he delivered something politicians have talked about for decades but rarely achieved: genuine affordability and accessibility in travel for the broad mass of Europeans.

Before the low-cost revolution that Ryanair led and drove, flying across Europe was largely the preserve of the well-off, the corporate traveller or the state-subsidised. Fares were high, routes were limited, and the experience was often one of frustration and expense.

Ordinary families, students, young workers and the devout simply stayed at home or endured long, uncomfortable journeys by road or rail. Ryanair changed that equation decisively.

By stripping away the frills that legacy carriers used to justify inflated prices, by operating from secondary airports, by driving efficiencies that legacy operators had never been forced to confront, Ryanair made air travel a realistic option for people of modest means. A flight from Dublin to Rome, or from Krakow to London, or from a dozen other secondary cities, became something within reach rather than a once-in-a-lifetime extravagance.

This is not abstract theory. It has concrete human consequences. Consider the simple act of pilgrimage. For Catholics across Europe, the journey to Rome has always carried deep significance. Yet for generations, the cost and complexity put it beyond the reach of most working families.

Ryanair, by making those routes frequent, reliable and affordable, has opened that possibility to far greater numbers. Grandparents can now accompany grandchildren to see the Eternal City and pray at its holy places. Parish groups can organise trips that once required heroic fundraising. Individuals seeking to deepen their faith find the practical barrier lowered.

This is not incidental to Ryanair’s model; it is a natural outcome of an enterprise that treats the customer as sovereign and refuses to price ordinary people out of movement.

In a Catholic understanding of business and commerce, such activity is not merely permissible but praiseworthy. It aligns with the recognition that honest enterprise creates wealth, multiplies opportunity and serves the common good by enabling human flourishing. It respects subsidiarity, local initiative and market signals rather than central direction, and it honours the dignity of work by creating hundreds of thousands of jobs directly and indirectly across the continent, many in regions that had previously been economically marginal.

Politicians and the institutions they inhabit speak endlessly of European integration. They convene summits, draft treaties, issue directives and spend vast sums of public money on programmes that too often deliver more bureaucracy than connection.

Yet the real integration, the kind that changes how people think and feel about one another, has come far more from the ability of millions of ordinary Europeans to move freely, cheaply and frequently between countries.

When a young Polish worker can fly to Ireland for seasonal employment and return home with earnings and new perspectives, when a Spanish family can spend a weekend in Prague without mortgaging the house, when students from across the Union can visit one another on a whim rather than as a rare privilege, something profound happens.

Prejudices soften. Common interests emerge. A shared sense of European space is built not from the top down but from the bottom up, through countless personal encounters.

Ryanair has been central to that process. It did not wait for political permission or seek to impose a vision; it simply responded to what people actually wanted and could afford. In that sense it has done more to bring the peoples of Europe closer together than any battery of commissioners, ministers or parliamentarians.

O’Leary’s financial reward flows directly from this success. The market has spoken through the choices of hundreds of millions of passengers who have voted with their wallets for what Ryanair offers. That is the proper mechanism of accountability and reward in a free society.

It stands in stark contrast to the rewards often conferred on political figures – titles, pensions, consulting contracts and revolving doors – whose contributions to the lives of ordinary citizens are frequently far harder to discern.

O’Leary built something durable that continues to deliver lower costs and greater choice even as regulatory pressures and taxes mount. He deserves the fruits of that achievement. To begrudge it would be to misunderstand the nature of value creation.

There will always be those who prefer the world of central planning, who imagine that integration must be engineered by experts in Brussels or national capitals rather than emerging from the voluntary interactions of free people. Ryanair’s story refutes that view daily. It shows what is possible when talent, capital and customer focus are aligned without constant political interference.

Tony Ryan would recognise the continuity. The vision he started has been realised on a scale he could scarcely have imagined, and it continues to serve the practical interests of Europeans in ways that abstract political projects rarely match.

Michael O’Leary has earned his place in that lineage. His reward is fitting. The rest of us have been the beneficiaries.

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