Ryanair CEO Calls for Ban on Early Morning Drinking at Airports

CEO of Ryanair Michael O’Leary grimaces during a press conference to announce further expansion of Ryanair Airlines in a hotel in Budapest, Hungary, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2012. (Photo: AP Photo/MTI, Attila Kovacs)

In a recent interview with The Times, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary claimed that his airline has been forced to divert almost one plane per day due to unruly passenger behavior. O’Leary blamed the trend, which has risen sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic, on airport bars, where he believes that customers are loading up on booze at unreasonable hours.

“It’s becoming a real challenge for all airlines,” O’Leary said. “I fail to understand why anybody in airport bars is serving people at five or six o’clock in the morning. Who needs to be drinking beer at that time?”

“There should be no alcohol served at airports outside [those] licensing hours,” he added. “We have been calling for many years for a limit of two drinks per person per airport, why don’t you limit people by boarding pass?”

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, unruly passenger reports spiked to 5,973 in 2021 — a 492% increase over the previous year. Though that number has decreased each year since, the total number of reports has yet to subside to pre-pandemic levels. Statistics from the Civil Aviation Authority suggest that airlines are suffering around 400 more disruptive incidents per year than before 2020.

The Ryanair CEO says that airlines are not to blame for the uptick.

“We are reasonably responsible but the ones who are not responsible, the ones who are profiteering off it, are the airports who have these bars open at five or six o’clock in the morning and during delays are quite happy to send these people as much alcohol as they want because they know they’re going to export the problem to the airlines,” O’Leary said.

O’Leary has served as the airline’s chief executive for over three decades, during which time he’s earned a reputation for candid — and by many accounts, controversial — remarks during interviews. The CEO was as outspoken as ever during his recent conversation with The Times, claiming that passengers are drinking alcohol while “shoving powder up their nose,” adding that “women are as bad offenders as the men in this.”

“If I go back ten years we would have maybe one flight diversion per week, now I would say we are running close to one diversion a day,” O’Leary concluded. “Until somebody creates an accident that causes a plane to crash and kills hundreds, no government will take this problem seriously and airlines are tearing their hair out.”

Under federal law, airlines have the right to refuse entry to passengers who are visibly intoxicated or appear to pose a risk to themselves, the crew or other passengers. It is illegal for passengers to consume their own alcohol on planes, and several airlines (Ryanair among them) have called for a two-drink limit during flights.

It’s unclear whether alcohol use is directly related to the uptick in unruly passenger behavior. According to CNN, of the nearly 6,000 reports lodged in 2021, over 70% were attributed to “mask-related incidents.” The federal mask mandate on planes was lifted in 2022, coinciding with a 59% decrease in passenger reports to the FAA. Masks, however, cannot entirely explain the high incident reports in the years since.

The FAA has stepped up its efforts to combat unruly behavior, referring an increasing number of cases to the FBI and proposing fines of up to $43,658 per violation.