He said all airlines are struggling with a rise in disruptive behaviour by passengers, and there are been a particular problem on flights to the so-called “party islands”, including Ibiza, plus some of the Balearic and Greek islands.
“On flights to Ibiza, we now search everyone’s bag as they get on board the aircraft. We remove bottles of water, which tend to be full of vodka,” Mr O’Leary told a press conference in Dublin.
“We started not allowing these passengers on board with duty free, but then we discovered people were filling up the water bottles with vodka. Now you are not allowed get on board on our Ibiza flights with bottles of anything.”
Today’s News in 90 seconds – 3rd October 2024
Mr O’Leary repeated his call for a limit of two alcoholic drinks to be served to passengers at airports, and said boarding passes could be stamped to ensure the limits weren’t exceeded. He said authorities needed to “throttle back a little bit” on the amount of drinking that is going on at airports.
“I don’t understand why the bars at airports are open at 7 in the morning. We have licensing laws – normal pubs don’t open until 11 or 12 o’clock. Why are the pubs open as early as 5am for people to drink Guinness?” he said.
The Ryanair chief executive insisted that he would be happy to imposed a two-drink limit on his own aircraft as well. “Would it cost us money? Not much. Our average flight time is one hour 15 minutes; few people would drink more than two in that time.”
Other airlines, including Easyjet, are also experiencing a big increase in the number of flights that have to be diverted in order to off-load disruptive passengers, Mr O’Leary said.
“We have cases of our crews being assaulted. There was one nutjob [passenger] coming in to Stansted last weekend and he tried to open the over-wing exit; he was, full of drink,” Mr O’Leary said. “Our crew should not have to deal with that kind of misbehaviour on board, and they do have to deal with it in an increasing number of cases. It does have to be tackled.”
He said the Gardai were “terrific” in helping deal with disruptive passengers, but the situation was less satisfactory in other countries. “A lot of times we land in Spain and the drunk is arrested by the local constabulary and released the following day. He sobers up and releases him. It’s a real challenge for all airlines.”
Ryanair is aiming to do away with paper boarding passes by next spring, its chief executive also revealed. Already about 60pc of Ryanair passenger are using its app, and that proportion is likely to increase to 80pc by the end of the year.
Moving entirely to the app would mean no more airport check-ins, and no more fines for passengers who present without a boarding pass.
“I don’t want to have ticket desks at the airport,” he said. “If we can move everyone onto the app, there will be no need to fine people or charge people for airport check-in.”
He expects that Ryanair will switch fully to its app by next April or May, which would be both environmentally and cost efficient.
Mr O’Leary said there would be help available for passengers whose phone batteries died. “Once we have the passport and name we can check you in at the boarding gates,” he said. “But everyone will be on the app.”
