Michael O'Leary conducting a press conference in 2011

In what could get Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary ‘retired’  Eire’s the  Sunday Independent has published correspondence in which he likened the republic’s Aviation Commissioner, Cathal Guiomard, to a “village idiot.” 

The publication goes on to quote Ryanair’s chairman David Bonderman as criticising O’Leary’s comments and disassociating the airline from them.

This doesn’t, for once, sound like an O’Leary inspired stunt.

When the chairman of a listed company goes public with a disavowal of a CEO the convention is for the chief executive to resign, as it amounts to a loss of confidence by the board.

But Ryanair is anything but conventional, so it might not come to this.