In a message dated 12/10/2003 1:48:18 PM Pacific Standard Time, gjmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: << Ryanair bankrupt???? Since when??? I thought they were very profitable. Or is this some other incarnation of Ryanair that I'm not aware of? >> Ryanair was founded in 1986 flying an EMB-110 Banderantie from Waterford (or something of the sort) in Ireland to London. They then expanded using aircraft from all places, something like 8 planes of 5 types. That included planes like ATRs and One-Elevens. They were losing money hand over fist, even though they had already taken a big chunk of DUB-LON traffic. A group of new management (including O'leary) toured WN here in the US to learn how to become a low fare carrier (and obviously decided that free soda was too much of a luxury). Anyway, they got rid of all turboprops and stuck with only the One-Elevens. They then started buying 732s, and eventually the first 738 order (about 45 planes, not the massive order from January of last year). During this time they phased out the One-Elevens and started doing the ass kicking that goes on today.