IT'S very much a part of flamboyant Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary's make-up that he shoots from the lip.
And that was certainly the case more than a decade ago, when he got into a vitriolic spat with politicians, airport management, planners and residents living close to the City Airport, ultimately leading to him pulling his fleet out of Belfast - because he wasn't granted a 600 metres extension to the runway.
Not untypical of his character, but in the least likely of settings - a First Trust business breakfast in July 2008 in the Waterfront Hall - he accused residents opposed to the extended runway of "mewling and puking".
Insisting that the longer landing strip was vital to enabling his airline to launch new direct services from Europe, O'Leary had been accused of trying to drive a horse and cart through the planning process.
Read More: Ryanair to return to Belfast City Airport with eight new summer routes
At that breakfast, at which I was present, he urged the business community to press for the runway to be lengthened, adding: "Let's get the planning permission through and let's ignore the mewling and puking from these residents, which is a load of nonsense."
Cue outrage all round (and First Trust officials nearly choking on their croissants).
But that was nothing compared to his press conference in the Europa Hotel in August 2010, when he followed through on his threat to pull his fleet out of the City Airport.
He fumed: "We're going to go and we're taking our planes. You'll lose the passengers, you'll lose the jobs. But we'll come back if somebody at some point in time up here makes a f***ing decision and delivers us a very small and modest runway extension to allow us to do nothing other than fly safely from Belfast City to continental Europe."
He added: "If Belfast doesn't want us and the authorities here don't recognise that Ryanair wants to invest in Belfast and in Northern Ireland tourism, we're not going to beat our head against the bloody wall for more than three years to do it, then to hell with you."
Nearly 11 years on, Ryanair is back - and the runway isn't a metre longer.
