The important lesson Michael O'Leary can teach the racing industry

Nine months into a pandemic that has crippled the airline industry, you might expect Michael O'Leary to be too busy keeping Ryanair afloat to talk to the media. But O'Leary has always been a gift to journalists – a pugnacious, freewheeling, often controversial subject, just like his airline – and over the last couple of weeks he has given at least two fascinating interviews, one to the Racing Post, another to the Financial Times. Oddly enough, it's the latter I want to touch upon.

"The real seismic change from Covid will be the growth opportunities across Europe," O’Leary told the FT in an interview published last week. "They are much greater than after the financial crisis or 9/11." He was talking about the airline business here, and to prove his message was not just flummery for investors, Ryanair has just put in a huge order for the troubled Boeing 737 Max jet, increasing its purchase from 135 to 210.

Allied to moves to buy up airport capacity being relinquished by distressed rivals, it represents an immense roll of the dice, the master businessman-gambler betting the house on the airline sector surging back strongly once Covid-19 restrictions relax and Ryanair being in pole position to hoover up its competitors' business. Investors like what they see: despite passenger numbers being a fifth of last year's, Ryanair shares are up in 2020.