Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary ‘happy’ to introduce two-drink booze limit on flights

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has said he is prepared to introduce a two-drink limit on his planes – if the same rule is applied to airport bars.

His call for alcohol restrictions comes after a “spike” in violent disorder among passengers over the summer.

Mr O’Leary told Sky News last month that Ibiza was one of the worst-affected destinations.

On Sunday, a Ryanair flight from Manchester to Ibiza was diverted to Toulouse in France after a group of passengers became disruptive.

Asked by Sky News if he would restrict passengers to two alcoholic drinks, Mr O’Leary said he would be “happy to do it tomorrow”.

He added: “If the price of putting a drink limit on the airport, where the problem is being created, is putting a drink limit on board the aircraft, we’ve no problem with that.

“The real issue is how do we stop these people getting drunk at airports particularly as, like this summer, we’ve had a huge spike in air traffic control delays.

“They’re getting on board with too much alcohol in their system. If we identify them as being drunk on board, we don’t serve them alcohol. But that doesn’t solve the problem.”

The Ryanair’s boss was speaking ahead of the company’s annual meeting in Dublin, where he told shareholders passenger traffic was on target to grow by 8% to 200 million this year.

Mr O’Leary also repeated his call for Martin Rolfe, the boss of Nats – the air traffic controller firm for many of the UK’s biggest airports – to be sacked over chaos at Gatwick Airport last summer.

“He’s demonstrated over a number of years that he’s incompetent,” Mr O’Leary claimed.

“It keeps breaking down as recently as last week, short-staffed at Gatwick. The Gatwick airlines had to cancel about 60 flights on Sunday.

“These repeatedly happen every summer. It’s not acceptable that someone who keeps delivering failure stays in his job. He should be dismissed.”

Nats said last year that the problems at Gatwick Airport had been caused by “an extremely rare set of circumstances” involving its technical infrastructure.

Mr Rolfe also apologised and said the organisation had “put measures in place to ensure it does not happen again”. He described Ryanair’s approach surrounding the issue as “abrasive” in a letter to a parliamentary committee.

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Meanwhile, Mr O’Leary also discussed the UK’s political outlook after previously saying Sir Keir Starmer “couldn’t be any worse” than the Conservatives.

He said on Thursday: “He’s getting his feet under the desk, it’s early days yet, but at least he has a big majority and you don’t have the kind of Tory psycho-drama going on”.

“Thankfully most of the Brexiteers have now lost their seats and are out in the wilderness,” he added.

Mr O’Leary also claimed that Brexit had done “untold damage to the UK economy” and called for closer UK alignment with EU rules.

He added: “It’s good for the UK and it’s good for Europe. I don’t think anybody wants the UK back in the EU, but Europe is still the UK’s biggest market, by some considerable distance.

“The Brexiteers have failed to deliver any of the trade agreements they promised at the time of Brexit… Most of them have left the stage despite being in charge when they delivered their shambolic hard-deal Brexit.”

A spokesperson for Nats told Sky News: “We are very sorry for Sunday’s disruption which was also disappointing for our highly professional Gatwick team, who are doing all they can to provide a seamless 24/7 service.”

They added: “This summer, since April, we have managed more than 124,000 flights at Gatwick, 2.7% up on last year and our service has been fully available over 99% of the time, 24 hours per day, every day.   

“Any cancellation is one too many. On the rare occasions when we have had to reduce the flow of traffic at Gatwick, we have done everything possible to minimise disruption.”