Funny how you grow to forget the path­ology of a nation bracing itself for disaster. Suddenly, all the symptoms were back on show in Tuesday morn­ing's gridlock as the apocalyptic pronouncements came steaming out of the breakfast radio shows, un­leashed by Ryanair's prediction of a financial loss of up to €60m for the year. The announcement had sent the company's share price plummeting by 22.5%. The message was inescapable. This, more than any other portent, presaged the certain disintegration of the Celtic Tiger.

One analyst was even speculating that it was time for Michael O'Leary to go. He might as well have advocated the repatriation of pigs to the parlour. You could see motorists in their cars trying to push their steering wheels away from them in the classic desperate reflex of people hurtling towards a spectacular crash.

Corporate miracle that became cock o' the skies

How the mighty are falling. Habitat gone. Maxwell Motors' BMW dealership in Dublin laying off more than half its staff. The PDs, the political cheerleaders of oxymoronic free-trade principles, postponing their date with Madame La Guillotine. Golf clubs, having blissfully bred like rabbits in the hey-day, paring back on greenkeepers. Now the most iconic of them all, Ryanair, the corporate miracle that rescued a whole ragged nation from the doldrums of the '80s in an unsprung bucket seat and made itself cock o' the skies. Long after the spondulicks are spent, the image will endure of O'Leary's manic-grinning head poking through the turret of a war tank, adding to the mirth and the pockets of the people. The multimillionaire Clongowes old boy in his irreverent rugby shirt who gouged the eyes out of elitism and made egalitarianism as chic and as lucrative as Prada.

To O'Leary, it was all about profits. To his passengers it was about €1 flights to far-flung soccer fixtures and a weekend skite to the Spanish hacienda. It was a match made for the age of the meritocracy – both sides in it for what they can get, and to hell with the romance. To the amateur sociologist, Ryanair was the key that unlocked the gates of peripherality, poverty and poor-me dependency. It became the biggest airline in Europe, replacing Jack's Army as the emblem of the conquering Irish spirit. Even if its chief executive was a bolshie, shame­less, foul-mouthed bully, predictions of his demise have brought a chilling vision of the encroaching economic dystopia. The argument goes that, if O'Leary won kudos and unimaginable personal wealth for making such enriching decis­ions as banning the milk of human kindness from Ryanair's in-flight service, he must equally take the blame for failing to hedge against the rising price of fuel, unlike most of his competitors. He declined the option of hedging agreements last April when oil was still a bargain $90, saying he expected it to fall to $80. Two months later, it reached €150. If only his planes could fly on his adrenalin.

But is it true, could the end be in sight for the most provo­cative capitalist in Europe?

"Well, we've just been talking about that here in the office and we've come up with a conspiracy theory," says Tony Dixon, editor of Airliner World magazine in Lincolnshire. "You know how Michael O'Leary loves to do shocking publicity stunts? We think they've releas­ed financial figures that are incorrect in order to attract attention to themselves, and it's worked. Ryanair is back on every tongue. I'm shocked that all these people think this is the end. OK, they're not making profits in this quarter but they're taking delivery of three or four new aircraft a month. All they need to do to make the figures better is to sell a few planes. Ryanair's never had a good press over here but I wouldn't write it off just yet. Nor would I write Michael O'Leary off. He'll go when he wants to go. He's never done anything on anybody else's terms."

Dixon's reaction reflects a widespread cynicism among market experts when it comes to O'Leary's tactics, contrary to his fellow capitalists' awe at his "refreshing candour". On Tuesday, the London Times quoted a senior strategist with BGC Partners, Harry Wheeldon: "Unless this is all bluff intended to frighten other airlines, Ryanair does not intend to reverse its growth strategy one jot. So be it – a busy fool it intends to be!"

In tandem with announcing his gloom forecast last week, O'Leary declared a price war. Instead of raising his fares by 5%, as he signalled two months ago, he is slashing them in a bare-faced effort to declutter the airline market. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has counted 24 carriers that stopped flying or filed for bankruptcy in the first half of this year, and O'Leary does not intend following the rest of the lemmings shuffling toward the cliff. By hoovering up the shrinking supply of air travellers, he hopes to unplug his rivals' life support.

'He's another Branson, the best publicist'

"The level of the fuel crisis was never predicted. Even BA, to a degree, have got their hedging wrong," says Peter Villa, chief executive of Apollo Aviation, a West Sussex-based aviation consultancy. "I sometimes wonder what Ryanair are doing but, to be terribly fair, hedging on oil prices is a really fine judgement call. I think a very large part of the company's success is owed to O'Leary's personality. He's another Branson. He's the best publicist I've ever seen.

"If the economy goes into decline, all the airlines will have real problems and you'll see some disappear. I don't think Ryan­­air are exempt. One of its problems is that it's always been pretty ruthless in cutting costs. It may sound odd but, in a way, a company is better off in the current climate if it has a bit of fat because you can then cut the fat out."

A longer-term factor than the oil crisis is that Ryanair's market catchment is being exhorted to behave in a way exactly counter to the ethos inspired by no-frills flying of spend like there's no tomorrow. Consumers are going to have to start being sensible with their money, just as the prevailing wisdom is that aviation companies need to batten down the hatches and conserve what they have. It is this imperative, believe some O'Leary watchers, that is, in fact, most likely to speed his departure from Ryanair. They argue that it is the challenge of amassing gargantuan profits that motivates him, whether he is in the business of running an airline or a corner sweetshop.

When a newspaper reported some years ago that he was planning to retire as chief executive to the upstairs comfort zone of non-executive chairman, he retorted: "The best companies that have survived over the long term are those that have been able to shoot the old guy. Old guys go – not get promoted to chairman. The last thing you want in a company is a two-headed dragon where people are questioning if O'Leary is still in the background pulling strings."

While he does not subscribe to the theory that a personal relationship exists between airlines and their users, akin to that between newspapers and their readers, leaner times may require a kinder face. "The dynamic between Ryan­air and its passengers is totally pragmatic," says Peter Villa. "People will continue to fly with them as long as they provide the cheapest seats but neither side ever promised to be faithful forever. It's a fickle sort of relationship."

Unacceptable face
of capitalism

In 2006, O'Leary said he was going to retire in 2008 because, he said, the company would need "somebody more profess­ional than me" when it became Europe's biggest airline. Last year, it was reported he would go in 2009. Whenever he finally slouches off with the inscribed carriage clock under his arm, the public will have been well prepped for the eventual departure of the shrieking, demotic iconoclast Mullingar farmer from the boss's office. After last week, his leave-taking is no-longer an unenvisaged scenario. What remains to be decided is when. As with airline scheduling, timing is everything.

Asked one time if he expected his successor to be Irish, he replied in typical O'Leary-speak. "Much more likely a ghastly emollient Englishman, probably with a knighthood: Sir Roger Mucknsmuch."

Meanwhile, the unacceptable face of capitalism, as various trade unionists have described the anti-union employer, reigns on as incessantly as an Irish summer.