Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary wants airports to change their drinking rules to curb antisocial behaviour and outbursts on flights.
The budget airline boss isn’t afraid to discuss new ways of travelling as I’m sure you will all remember his controversial suggestion to make a standing section on flights.
On RTÉ One’s The Late Late Show in 2012, O’Leary insisted that it would be ‘very safe’, adding: “Funnily enough, what we wanted to do was take out the last ten rows of seats.
The Ryanair boss is calling for a drinking rule change in airports. (PA)
“We’d have a standing cabin and a seated cabin. The seats would be 25 euros and the standing cabin would be one euro. I guarantee you we will fill the standing cabin first.”
In another idea, the 63-year-old has now called for alcohol limits in airports to amid a rise in disorder on flights.
“It’s not that easy for airlines to identify people who are inebriated at the gate, particularly if they are boarding with two or three others,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“As long as they can stand up and shuffle they will get through. Then when the plane takes off we see the misbehaviour.
Michael O’Leary has called for an alcohol limit in airports. (PA)
“We don’t want to begrudge people having a drink. But we don’t allow people to drink-drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000 feet.”
O’Leary has suggested that by limiting passengers to just two drinks before they get on board could be the solution.
“The airports of course are opposed to it and say that their bars don’t serve drunken passengers. But they do serve the relatives of the drunken passenger,” he added.
“We used to only allow them to take bottles of water on board, not realising that they were full of vodka.
O’Leary says that drunk ‘passengers fighting with each other is now a growing trend’. (Getty Stock Images)
“Now we don’t even allow them to take those.
“In the old days people who drank too much would eventually fall over or fall asleep. But now those passengers are also on tablets and powder.
“It’s the mix. You get much more aggressive behaviour that becomes very difficult to manage.
“And it’s not directed just at the crew. Passengers fighting with each other is now a growing trend on board the aircraft.”
This comes after a British man was convicted of sexually assaulting a flight attendant on a 2023 Ryanair flight from Newcastle to Majorca in 2023.
The holidaymaker touched the steward’s bottom ‘in a lewd way’ while pretending he had credit card issues.