Only a captain of the aviation industry could get away with such elevating thoughts on his office wall as "Your attitude almost always determines your altitude in life" and "It is a fact that in the right formation, the lift power of many wings can achieve twice the distance of one bird flying alone".

Mr P.J. McGoldrick has many wings now. His fleet of 17 Airbus aircraft carried 3.2 million European passengers last year. His company, TransAer, is the biggest operator of Airbus aircraft, with 11 A320s and six A300s, in Europe and has moved into Asia with contracts in Malaysia and Pakistan. The three-year Pakistani contract is worth $24 million (€22 million), transporting pilgrims to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

He expects turnover of £120 million (€152 million) for 1998, up from £77 million the previous year. The current year will be more one of consolidation than expansion, although he envisages some growth.

"We are now the biggest independent charter airline in Europe and we have a way to go yet.

"There is nobody near us. Most of our competitors are vertically-integrated, their operators and business are integrated," he says.

But he is giving little away on the profits front, although the industry standard is of a profit margin of about 5 per cent.

Margins are "tight", he says. "We have been profitable here for the past five years. Some years we have not made a lot of profit, but we have not made any losses."

He intends to carry on the strategy of spreading the business geographically "and not concentrating all our eggs in one basket". "There is a clear opportunity to develop the business over the next few years and probably double the size of it over a four- or five-year period. But that will have to be in an environment where there is opportunity."

Mr McGoldrick is a former chief executive of Ryanair, taking up the post in 1988 when he returned from Britain. Describing the state of the company at that time, he has said it was "flying blind without the financial information it needed to make intelligent decisions".

"I was there during a period when the losses stopped. We had to cut the costs in Ryanair to get it to really be a low-cost carrier," he says.

As well as management changes, he introduced the Ryanair business class fare, before leaving to set up TransAer at the end of 1991. He controls 53 per cent of the company which, although it was established as a cargo-carrying airline, has steadily moved into transporting passengers to the point where no more cargo flights are made. Half of its business is in providing quick-fix solutions under the TransAer name to tour operators or other airlines needing to increase short-term capacity. Longer-term business involves leasing craft and crew to other airlines, flying under their logos.

"The name of this game that we are in is to have enough knowledge of the marketplace to know where the guy riding the wave is and where the guy needing the short-term commitment is," he says.

It was the slightest of chances which led him into aviation. He has unhappy memories of primary school under the Christian Brothers and refused to countenance Blackrock College or a secondary school run by a religious order. As a 13-year-old or a 59-year-old, his view has not changed on the matter.

"You can make out of your life whatever you decide to make out of it. You do not have to be subject to someone else's idea of what it should be."

He went to the local technical school, St Vincent's College, Sligo, where he realised that education could be "a pleasant experience".

He later successfully applied to the Air Corps.

The highlight of his eight-year stint was a trip to the Congo, and he was on the scene in the bush in the aftermath of the Niemba ambush in 1960, driving one of the ambushed trucks back to the base camp.

In 1964 he moved to the private sector, working for Shannon Air before emigrating to Britain, rather than working in the more staid environs of Aer Lingus. "I had a fear of being classified," he says.

He became a flight engineer and later a pilot, achieving the rank of captain and reaching instrument-rating examiner level before moving into management for Transmeridian, the passenger and cargo airline he worked for.

"When I got to the top of the tree in aviation, I just wanted to do something else, and I enjoy the commercial side of the business."

With the backing of Cunard Shipping Line he set up Heavylift Cargo Airlines in 1979. It was a niche market company specialising in transporting satellite, helicopter and heavy military equipment and using ex-British military aircraft initially but later Soviet-made Antonov carriers. He and two colleagues owned the aircraft and leased them into the company. He eventually sold out his interest.

"To a certain extent the challenge went out of it and I enjoy the challenge. Here is a great challenge, here is a great opportunity to build a business."

Along the way, he has taken correspondence courses. "I read every management book that I could.

"You cannot run a business of this size and in an environment of this particular kind out of the UK without understanding business," he says.

TransAer was established to take advantage of common aviation standards throughout the EU, using the 15-state zone as its base rather than one airport. "In actual fact, one of our smallest bases is Ireland where we are based," he says.

The Dublin office, however, with its £1 million computer system, is the communications hub and co-ordination centre for the business.

But he cites the role the Irish Aviation Authority, the flight-certification awarding authority, has played in developing his charter business. "We have had the top technical person from the IAA in his office at nine or 10 o'clock at night, waiting for the US to deregister a craft so that he can register it the next day," he says.

TransAer has five of its 17 aircraft leased to its associate US charter flight company, Transmeridian, which took its name from Mr McGoldrick's former British employer. He has a 45 per cent stake in the US company and is on its board. It now operates out of Cuba and Venezuela during the US winter holiday season, providing an outlet for otherwise idle aircraft during the European off season. He is positive about Cuba, seeing it as a growing market, unlike Russia which has lost international business confidence because of its mafia problem.

"People have been burnt in Russia. In Cuba it is very different. There is control there. There is a strong government there and there is investment opportunity there. Tourism is booming there, hotels are being built every day," he says.

He also sees further development opportunities in the Middle East and in South America. "We see business growing in Europe but our major opportunities, we think, are outside of Europe." He has two sons, Stuart, who has followed him into the industry, and James who works for Davy Stockbrokers.

He now flies a hydroplane for leisure purposes and sails as well, basing himself at his Killaloe holiday home when possible, although he has been in the Co Clare town for just two weekends since Christmas. "I spend, I suppose, about 80 per cent of my time away."