If one wants to find out that how Irish is Ryanair, an airline which has it's headquarter in Dublin and run by one of Ireland's most prominent businessmen it is very, according to the man himself. Chief executive Michael O'Leary posted third-quarter earnings to analysts and media and stated that he had overestimated the importance of Ireland to the growth prospects of Europe's biggest airline.

The first major route flew by Ryanair was Dublin to Luton in the year of 1986. But after that the unstoppable expansion of the decisive low-cost airline has made its way out of its homeland. Only ten per cent of its total of 72.7m passengers turned out to be Irish in the last year.

Ireland has become the main reason of Mr. O'Leary's permanent state of irritation because the country's economic problems have reduced consumption and the expectations of investors. But it is tough for the company to appear less Irish, excepting changing its name to Flyin' Air and its boss's moniker to Michael O. Lowry.

Multinational businesses remain burdened with their birthplace identities long after the bulk of their revenues come from overseas. BP was thus anachronistically referred to as "British Petroleum" in the US during last year's Macondo oil spill furore. UK-based banks such as HSBC must meanwhile cope with UK media assumptions that worldwide profits numbered in billions betoken exploitation of modest UK retail customer bases.

However, checking of Ryanair's non-Irish passenger numbers do not add much confidence already encouraged by the strength of the airline's no-frills business model. The UK, whose output plunged in the last quarter, supplied thirty per cent of Ryanair's customers in 2010. Worse, 40% were Italian or Spanish. The European Union's strongest large economy, Germany, generated just twelve per cent of business.