BY MICHAEL BRESLIN

There's hardly anyone who hasn't heard of Ryanair's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, the saint of backpackers for no frills air fares, and the scourge of Aer Lingus, its loyal backer, the Irish government and most politicians.

A biography, simply titled: 'Michael O'Leary: A Life in Full Flight' by Alan Ruddock, a contemporary at Trinity College and a former business journalist, lifts the lid on this fascinating character with a 'take it or leave it' personality', a hard-nosed entrepreneur who is disliked and admired in equal measure.

A lot of people are under the impression that O'Leary founded Ryanair, the cheap air fares carrier that dared to take on the big boys who enjoyed a lucrative lifesyle, and the patronage of politicians to whom they only had to nod and a wink to safeguard any route that came under threat.

No. Ryanair was founded by another hard-nosed entrepreneur, Tony Ryan who left school at 16 and went to work for Aer Lingus. Five years later he funded Irelandia which, in 1985, evolved into Ryanair.

The author tells why: 'Ryan argued that Ireland needed a second airline to force Aer Lingus to rationalise its own cost base so that it would be ready to compete in what Ryan saw as the emerging low fares market'.

The rise of Ryanair was not without its in-built set backs, given the monopoly of routes by Aer Lingus and others but, until Michael O'Leary came on the scene to take personal charge of its finances, it was losing money almost at the same rate as it was increasing its passenger volume. But, once O'Leary had his feet under the table, it was upwards and onward and woe behold anyone or anything that stood in the way.

So, who is Michael O'Leary? He was born in Dublin in 1961. His father was a fearless businessman based in Mullingar whose forte was to set up a manufacturing company and, when it folded, start up another. Young O'Leary boarded at the Jesuit College of Clongowes where, according to the book, he was,'an average student', a status O'Leary himself preferred: "Much better off to be in the middle. I was common Joe Soap, I'm still common Joe Soap. I just got lucky a couple of times'.

Where O'Leary is quoted, the 'F-word' appears quite freely and unnecessarily, but it does give an insight into his spikey personality. Somehow or other, he graduated with a business degree from Trinity College despite missing lectures a lot. However, his first career path, into accountancy, was to lead abruptly and directly into Ryanair's employ, but not before he acquired a series of Dublin newsagencies which he later sold, at a profit.

'His business philosophy was straightforward', we are told. 'I bought mom and pop outfits. I'd open at seven in the morning and close at eleven at night. Treble the turnover, treble your money'. Famously, he opened his Walkinstown shop on Christmas Day ('I had this theory that people were stuck for stuff to do on Christmas day'), trebled the price of batteries and chocolates and, at the day's end, he took in £14,000 compared to the normal day's takings of £1,000.

'I never had a sexual experience in my life like it', he recalls. 'The feeling of having one wad of notes pushed down one side of my trousers and another wad of notes pushed down the other, waddling out of the newsagents with about 14 grand, hoping I wasn't going to be mugged going to the car'.

It was business acumen like that that had Tony Ryan head hunting him, but O'Leary wasn't ready to bite just yet. He waited a year and then took up the job offer, in May 1988. He arrived at a time when there was an all-out war being waged against the company by Aer Lingus as Ryanair sought to establish new routes, to England (Luton) and then Scotland (Glasgow).

Given Ryanair's legendary 'no frills' philosophy, O'Leary had a right culture shock when landed on his first day in Ryanair's offices in central Dublin: 'It was like yoiu'd arrived at the pearly gates. There was a gorgeous blonde chick at every desk, plush carpets, beautiful furnishings'.

'The place (the company) was in a mess', he recalled. 'There was no cost control. They were trying to be a 'mee too' airline like everyone else and not really succeeding evry well with it'.

That was in 1988. Three years later, reacting to the news that Tony Blair was using Ryanair to fly to its newly-acquired French landing site, a major publicity coup in itself, the company in response to media queries confirmed this was indeed the case.

'But', the author tells us, 'it still used the opportunity to get across its message: if he (Blair) wants a cup of tea or a sandwich, he will have to pay for it'.

O'Leary had a theory that all Aer Lingus wanted was to lower their own fares to a level that Ryanair just could not survive on and, having done that, they would up the fares again. That, and the constant readiness of the Irish government to bail out Aer Lingus , a publicly-owned company that was denying competition to its ratepayers, further sharpened O'Leary's claws.

There were one or two beign and brave politicians who did back their plans to open new routes, among them Seamus Brennan, as the new Minister for Transport. He it was who prompted his government to agreeing to make Ryanair the sole licensee to operate from Ireland to Stanstead and Luton, and Aer Lingus similarly as regards Heathrow and Gatwick.

He particularly reserved his venom for Brennan's successor, Mary O'Rourke, with whom he had a long-standing fued over her refusal to open a second terminal at Dublin Airport. As Transport Minister, she was the major shareholder in Aer Lingus and in Aer Rianta, the company that operated the airport.

A few days after the sudden death of her 40-year old husband in January, 2001, O'Leary authorised a full-page advertisement showing the Minister in a bathtub with the catchline; 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your monopoly grow?'. It doesn't'. We are told that Mrs O'Rourke was appalled (' he did it four days after Enda died, and he saw me. He was at the funeral and I was roaring, crying').

But, O'Leary was unrepentant. He only ever apologised once. Having taken advantage of the aftermath of 9/11 when aircraft manufacturers were laying off employees by the thousands, he beat down two rival bidders to supply new aircraft Ryanair required, he wrote to the loser, Airbus.

But, as he told them,'busines is business', and his tactic of faxing the other's latest lowered price to the other, meant Ryanair got 100 brand new Boeing 737-800 jets for kess than half price.

Not surprisingly, O'Leary was given a rousing reception by some 2,000 employees when he arrived at Boenig's manufacturing base in the US.

Nor was he afraid to adopt some of Aer Lingus style of aggression when one of Ryanair's own routes came under attack, for instance when Go made a pitch for the Dublin-Edinburgh service. 'We got a thrashing', Go's marketing director wrote some years later.

He did lose out famously, to Ryanair's millonth passenger, 21-year old Jane O'Keefe who, perhaps unwisely, was promised free flights for life when she landed on the tarmac. For 10 years, this lady indulged her two free seats, then came the crunch. She was refused seats and got through to O'Leary who, she claimed, was rude to her. She then instructed her lawyers to sue for £500,000 compendsation and, typically, O'Leary dug in his heels.

"We said f... of', he told the media, the story now having attained a feeding frenzy status. But, he held his ground, desite the misgivings of senior staff and took the stand where he denied being hostile on the phone. The judge didn't believe him and awarded Ms O'Keefe 67,600 euro by way of compensation.

As ever, O'Leary looked to the positives. The fact he had forced the plaintiff to go through the courts would send out a warning to anyone else chancing their arm and, on the principle of, 'any publicity is good publicity', it had been well worthwhile.

As stated, senior executives couldn't agree but, then, Michael O'Leary is his own man.