I am sorry, Herr Winkelmann, you are wrong! If Ryanair ever fails, it will either be due to an accident or a total collapse of customer service. The Germanwings chief implies that failure to attract the corporate market is the Achilles Heel of the strategy. Frankly, it the the corporate market that has been shaky in the crisis.
Herr Winkelmann states, "taxpayers in destinations should not have to bear the brunt of Ryanair's business model." OK, I can see the point that taxpayers do apparently foot the bill for subsidies allegedly paid to Ryanair at certain destinations, but this ignores the point that Ryanair's presence has had an enormous positive impact on local economies throughout Europe.
Let's consider this: Germanwings is owned by Lufthansa, and I seem to recall that Juergen Weber, a former CEO of the German national carrier, was convinced that travellers prefer to pay extra for better service. Well, that proved to be completely wrong too. It may be the case that Ryanair is the airline that everyone likes to hate, but their CEO, Michael O'Leary, hit the spot when he declared that Europeans are prepared to crawl naked over broken glass for cheap fares.
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I agree with you, it's hard to believe that Ryanair's end is comming soon. But you have to admit that Winkelmann pointed out a real weakness of Ryanair. The fact that ryanair doesn't attract business travellers will be a problem I think. Moreover, Stelios underlined the same weakness, I think he's right to.
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