Michael O’Leary said his airline is having to divert almost one plane a day due to bad passenger behaviour, a big increase from ten years ago when the airline saw ‘maybe one flight diversion per week’
Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary(Image: Getty Images)
Michael O’Leary is calling for a ban on airport bars serving alcohol before early morning flights to tackle bad passenger behaviour.
The Ryanair boss said that as a result of passengers behaving badly, his airline has had to divert almost one plane a day.
“It’s becoming a real challenge for all airlines. I fail to understand why anybody in airports bars is serving people at five or six o’clock in the morning. Who needs to be drinking beer at that time?” He told The Times.
Airport bars in Ireland operate under special licenses that allow them to serve alcohol to customers outside normal pub hours.
“There should be no alcohol served at airports outside [those] licensing hours. 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?” Mr O’Leary said.
Unlike airport bars, the budget airline would rarely serve a passenger more than two drinks on board, a limit he thinks should also be enforced in airports. “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.”
In January of 2025, Ryanair announced it had started legal action to recover losses against disruptive passengers who forced a flight to be diverted. The airline filed legal proceedings against a passenger who was on a flight from Dublin to Lanzarote, seeking €15,000 in damages.
Ryanair has a strict zero-tolerance policy towards passenger misconduct and will continue to take action to combat unruly passenger behaviour on aircraft for the benefit of the vast majority of passengers who do not disrupt flights.
“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,” Mr O’Leary explained.
“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.”
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