RYANAIR’S war of words with Spain’s Transport Minister, Oscar Puente, has taken a fresh twist with the carrier’s CEO, Michael O’Leary posting a mocking video on social media.
The footage features the airline’s boss in an AI-generated video speaking in fluent Spanish.
He criticised Puente’s comments about Ryanair’s reasons for pulling out of some of the country’s regional airports on the grounds that they are short of aircraft.
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O’Leary branded Puente as a ‘failure’ and called his accusations ‘false’.
He denied that flight cuts are due to a lack of aircraft and maintained that the company has 648 aircraft this summer (29 more than in 2025),
It also expecting to increase its annual traffic from 208 to 216 million passengers.
O’Leary said this growth is not transferred to Spain’s regions because their airport costs are not competitive.
He stated that lies in fees and taxes, giving as an example Slovakia, Ireland, Sweden or regional Italy, where tax burdens are lower and rubbished Puente’s argument that Spanish rates are among the lowest in Europe-insisting that regional airports must lower prices to capture operations.
Michael O’ Leary also criticised Puente’s mathematical knowledge, stating that he will send him a copy of the book ‘Basic Maths for Dummies’ and branded him a ‘dummy’.
A few hours after the video was posted by Ryanair, Puente responded by suggesting that if O’Leary does not like the rules and conditions of Spanish airports, he should go ‘somewhere else’.
That was a reference to the airline’s usual response on social networks, where O’Leary usually ironically invites users to ‘walk’ to their destinations if they do not agree with his policies.
Punete commented: “I know how to score perfectly. Fees at Spanish airports are low enough that a single Ryanair person pocketed €100 million last year. You know: if you don’t like our rules, fly somewhere else.”
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