Last November I commented on the contrast between the pleasant service and honest pricing offered by Easy Jet and the byzantine obfuscation, ritual humiliation and deliberate provocation to which Ryanair subjects its customers. An article in today's Corriere revealed that it's not just his passengers who are shafted by O'Leary. The airline has adopted various devices to avoid paying the Italian exchequer five hundred million euros. Easy Jet, it notes 'per onor di cronoca' [for the record], pays its taxes in full. If a government, as the French have discovered, seeks to crack down on the evasion, O'Leary simply closes the routes. You either play it his way or he doesn't play at all.
Just one more example of the impotence of national governments in the face of amoral oafs running international businesses. Of course if there were a Federal EU government, as a carrier whose routes are confined to Europe, O'Leary would have no option but to pay his taxes or go out of business. One can but dream!
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