Michael O’Leary questions Britain’s 5 a.m. airport drinking culture as Ryanair boss continues battle with pubs

The Ryanair CEO has been keen to highlight increased air rage on his flights, which has led to prosecutions and diversions after unruly behavior from intoxicated passengers.

Violent incidents occurred on Ryanair flights at a rate of one per week over the summer, O’Leary has said, and he is laying the blame at the feet of airport pubs.

He has earmarked specific problem routes to party destinations like Ibiza and Ayia Napa as particular issues for his airline, where drink and drug use spills over into violence on flights. 

O’Leary told a press conference in Dublin that his airline had taken to checking passengers’ water bottles before they boarded flights to Ibiza, a point he previously made to the Telegraph in August.

O’Leary now wants the U.K.’s Labour Government to introduce a two-drink limit at airport pubs to push more responsibility onto them.

The CEO of the Irish airline has now questioned the British cultural quirk of travelers starting their holiday in the airport bar in the early hours of the morning, indicating bars should open at the same time as they do outside the airport.

“We just need to kind of throttle back a little bit on the amount of drinking that’s going on. I’m very fond of a drink, but I don’t understand why the bars at airports are open at 7am,” O’Leary told the press conference.

“We have licensing laws—normal pubs don’t open until 11 or 12 o’clock. Why are the pubs open as early as 5 a.m. for people to drink Guinness?” 

O’Leary’s initial accusation that airport pubs were enabling drinkers drew the ire of Wetherspoons boss Sir Tim Martin, who defended the track record of his airport chains in reducing excessive drinking among passengers.

Martin pointed out that Wetherspoons had removed “shooters” like Jägerbombs from its menus as well as “double up” offers. Meanwhile, he highlighted that Ryanair offered passengers offered passengers a discount if they ordered a double whiskey.

O’Leary indirectly responded to Martin by saying he would be happy to introduce a two-drink limit on his flights if airport pubs did the same. 

“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…