Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary is one of the most outspoken people in the airline industry. He’s also known for almost exclusively promoting positions that help his airline, which is fair enough. So along those lines, here’s the latest example of that…
In this post:
Ryanair wants to ban alcoholic drinks before morning flights
Ryanair’s CEO is calling on airports to be banned from serving alcohol to passengers before early morning flights, arguing that this would reduce the number of disruptions onboard aircraft. O’Leary claims that Ryanair is having to divert an average of one flight per day due to poor passenger behavior, and alcohol is one of the main contributors to poor behavior onboard aircraft.
O’Leary points out how the UK has licensing hour restrictions that govern the sale of alcohol, but that doesn’t apply to bars at airport. As O’Leary explained:
“It’s becoming a real challenge for all airlines. 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 licensing hours.”
Of course it’s pointed out that Ryanair sells alcohol onboard flights, and flight attendants are known to be very motivated to sell, given that they have quotas to reach (or at least they historically have). O’Leary defended that by pointing out that the airline rarely sells more than two drinks to a passenger:
“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.”
Lol, you’ve gotta love O’Leary saying Ryanair is “reasonably responsible,” and suggests the airline isn’t really “profiteering off” alcohol, while airport vendors are. O’Leary has also called on a general limit of two alcoholic drinks per person at airports, regardless of the time of day, to minimize issues onboard flights.
Of course being intoxicated on a plane violates regulations in most countries, and can lead to a penalty. Ryanair in particular has been known to go after passengers who cause diversions, suing them for the costs incurred. It seems this is almost done more for optics than anything, in terms of showing people that poor behavior has consequences (it’s something I commend the airline for).
O’Leary has a (convenient) point about alcohol
The culture around drinking at airports is kind of funny:
- An airport is one of the few places you can have a drink in the early hours of the morning without getting judged too hard
- In terms of economic incentives, airports are essentially shopping malls and food halls that just happen to have gates, and most airports get a cut on sales, so there’s an incentive to sell people whatever they’d like to buy
- Airlines (and particularly Ryanair) will also gladly sell passengers alcohol onboard, because it’s another revenue opportunity
If I were to look at this objectively and say “okay, what’s best for society,” sure, maybe banning alcohol at the airports early in the morning would be a “best practice,” in terms of minimizing disruptions to flights. But at the same time, I just think this is a strange place to draw a line:
- Some people flying at 6AM are just going on holiday and have one drink before their flight in a celebratory way, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that
- I don’t necessarily assume someone having a drink or two at an airport in the morning poses more of a risk than someone having a drink or two in the evening
- It’s a really slippery slope to claim “oh, we want to avoid diversions as much as possible,” while also carving out very narrow situations where alcohol shouldn’t be allowed, in a way that closely aligns with economic incentives
- Airport lounges would presumably continue to have alcohol with virtually no limits, so any rule would be rather inconsistent
- In general I don’t disagree with the concept of a limit of two drinks per person at an airport (or whatever), but tracking that is virtually impossible, and isn’t something that’s likely to get very far, given the differing incentives of various parties
Bottom line
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary is calling on morning alcohol sales at airports to be banned. He argues that traditional bars only have certain hours over which they can serve alcohol, but that doesn’t apply to airports. O’Leary claims that the airline is now seeing an average of one diversion per day due to unruly passengers, and alcohol is a major contributor to that.
There’s no denying that alcohol does contribute to some inflight issues, and that normalizing drinking early in the morning is something that’s generally only not frowned down upon at airports. I’m just curious to what extent O’Leary’s take here is motivated by his desire to sell more alcohol onboard, rather than an actual concern over diversions.
What do you make of O’Leary proposing a morning airport alcohol ban?
I actually think he’s right. I find it odd seeing people in the UK drinking at 6am before a morning flight. I enjoy alcohol, but I’ve never woken up, rushed to the airport, and thought I needed a pint.
It’s clearly cultural. When I raise it with British friends, I’m basically told I’m the strange one—“we’re on holiday, mate, of course a breakfast pint is in order.”
In Canada, airports (including lounges) follow local liquor...
I actually think he’s right. I find it odd seeing people in the UK drinking at 6am before a morning flight. I enjoy alcohol, but I’ve never woken up, rushed to the airport, and thought I needed a pint.
It’s clearly cultural. When I raise it with British friends, I’m basically told I’m the strange one—“we’re on holiday, mate, of course a breakfast pint is in order.”
In Canada, airports (including lounges) follow local liquor laws. At the MLL in YYZ, beer taps are simply off in the morning. No drama, no issue.
I don’t see why the UK couldn’t do something similar. And as far as I know, you can’t walk into a pub in central Manchester at 6am and order a pint—but happy to be corrected.
6 AM local time could easily be 6 PM to someone connecting from long haul.
Let it be. Don't serve people obviously impaired as required by law.
Everything he does is self serving.
If alcohol were to be banned in airports, it absolutely must be banned on the flights as well - except they would circumvent that by serving it as soon as they cleared national airspace.
Its disgusting that ppl think they should have any right to interfere with what other ppl want to do, if they want a beer at 5am who are these clowns to say they shouldnt?
"National airspace" has little to do with this, generally speaking what matters is where the plane is registered (I know that exceptions exist but they're just that - exceptions :)).
I know it’s not the point, but now you’ve got me thinking what a Ryanair lounge would look like…
He loves free PR. Paid toilets, no seats, a fightbwith Musk? Yes, he'll do anything for PR. Nothing more, nothing less.
I’m pretty sure that Alan Jackson song, “It’s five o’clock somewhere”, was referring to PM not AM.
As a Texan I found this funny
I am British and I know that many passengers and children are traumatized by drunk passengers , usually groups of male friends, on flights from /to UK ,mainly to European holiday destinations .It is a British culture thing to drink on holidays and some passengers do not know when to stop .I agree that airport bars should be controlled for serving alcohol, a good suggestion by Michael O'Reilly .
All the major incidents almost exclusively happen on flights to/from the UK (especially if there's a holiday destination on the other hand) and seem to reflect broader cultural problem with people's inability to handle alcohol over there. If the proposal is specifically for the UK, then he may have a point but trying to turn this into some sort of pan-European thing is only setting him up for a failure.
Northern Europeans drink to get blotto. Southern Europeans don't.
This again is a self education ... not only European etc i saw some Japanese completely drunk at 6am in some US airport ...
How incredibly paternalistic and self serving for O'Leary to be putting this view. We are all adults and don't need to be told when, how and what we drink. To improve his business, he wants to inhibit another. If someone is too drunk to board a flight - then what are they doing on board? If they want to improve inflight behaviour, maybe create a seat that is fit for an adult, rather than a small child...
Consider the type of passenger that mostly flies Ryanair. This could also be a factor. While O'Leary is outspoken people also should respect him because he runs a profitable airline and he personally makes a lot of money so at least some of his decisions are good.
Passengers of many different standings travel on RyanAir because sometimes they are the only airline that travels to a particular airport.
So no choices on alternative airlines .
So your comment is irrelevant .
Let’s not dance around it: the problem is the poor. When the poor drink, they tend to get violent, it is part of their culture. Spirit Airlines had the same problem.
There's a 'culture' associated with being poor?
No, the problem is the brits - the entire island is filled with drunks. Clean that up and then ryanair won't have this problem
Walter Mitty-Dunn, once again berates “Brits” without the slightest notion of what he is spouting about. I am sure that Ben, is appreciative of your click, for that is the nett worth of your post …. thank you for the grin Walt’ …. :-)
Nige when the wealthy drink they are angles? You must not follow the news
Stir up the protests and then give in by adding a £10 surcharge for using the lav.
I know most people drinking in the morning are going to keep going all day but actually from a health standpoint it’s better to drink in the morning so it doesn’t disrupt your sleep.
But he wants to sell it onboard. Yeah, that might help curb some of this issue but it's also about cornering the market on the sale of alcohol. Anyone that needs to drink a beer at 5AM will likely be willing to pay whatever the rip off price is onboard one of his planes. Because they're a drunk.
How does it compare to the Wawa, Georgie?
Si what exactly are the crew doing during boarding if they are not assessing the passengers as theygo through the aircraft door. There are always signs of drunken behavior, verbal or physical and its at that time the a passenger should be refused boarding, avoiding a diversion and aggression in the air.
I agree.
They should be assessed at the gate before boarding .
It's a little unfair to paint British culture as one of heavy drinkers. You'd think if that were the case, everyone would go around saying "Cheers Mate" randomly, even when there's no drinking involved.
Oh wait...
He's also failing to take into account people who might be transiting at the airport between flights. Just because it's 5 AM at the airport doesn't mean the passenger's internal body clock is always at the same time!
There is no transit on Ryanair at 5am. They only sell point to point. No longhaul and mostly a 1 hr time difference. Most European airports have a curfew. They are origin - destination.
Doesn't mean there's no one getting off a longhaul then getting on a separately ticketed Ryanair flight. I used to do that quite a bit with Easyjet
No. I can assure you not on Ryanair. There are no longhauls from Luton and the only one to Stansted is emirates. Having flown Ryanair several times from Stansted, they are all originating there. I’ve observed the drinkers and they are mostly a certain demographic ie the only way is Essex / reform voters. On the other hand, Heathrow is entirely different at 530am. It’s not an issue there.
This may come as a shock to you, but cities other than London exist!
It could be both but considering its coming from Michael O'Leary, it is purely self-serving.
I'm at the airport. I'm not driving. There is zero issue with me having a drink. Alcoholics are gonna alcoholic no matter what you do. Banning drinks in the morning doesn't solve the problem, and impacts a lot more people (and airport concession sales) than better enforcement to keep obviously intoxicated people off the aircraft/not serving them once they're on the aircraft. But that wouldn't get O'Leary an alcohol monopoly out of some likely high-consumption...
I'm at the airport. I'm not driving. There is zero issue with me having a drink. Alcoholics are gonna alcoholic no matter what you do. Banning drinks in the morning doesn't solve the problem, and impacts a lot more people (and airport concession sales) than better enforcement to keep obviously intoxicated people off the aircraft/not serving them once they're on the aircraft. But that wouldn't get O'Leary an alcohol monopoly out of some likely high-consumption airports, so it's a no-go.
I don't think you understand British alcohol culture. They're not drinking to socialize or celebrate, it's a race to get drunk as soon as possible. And especially flights bound for southern destinations, mostly Spain, are like an open invitation to test if you can get alcohol poisoning before you go on board, no matter what time of day it is.
Some people argue that airports are different because there's people flying from all over...
I don't think you understand British alcohol culture. They're not drinking to socialize or celebrate, it's a race to get drunk as soon as possible. And especially flights bound for southern destinations, mostly Spain, are like an open invitation to test if you can get alcohol poisoning before you go on board, no matter what time of day it is.
Some people argue that airports are different because there's people flying from all over the world and may still be biologically adjusted to different time zones. That honestly doesn't count for Ryanair and their flights as they're just active in 3 time zones and have virtually no overnight flights. And they're the main or even only operator at quite a few airports they fly to. Given Ryanair's known aggressive negotiation style, I'm sure they could have just solved the issue instead of whining about it and pretend they're responsible and so.
Which brings me to my point of view and my experiences: I've been on a few of those boozer expresses and they're really appalling. People board visibly intoxicated at 6AM and Ryanair cabin crew just turns a blind eye and sells them anything they want. Not even if a fight breaks out, not even if half the passengers pass out or start puking all over the plane, will any action be taken. The flight will simply not be diverted, not as long as there's a pilot left to land the damn thing. I really want to avoid these flights, but sometimes they're simply the most convenient or even only alternative, so every time I just hope for the best.
Conclusion: O'Leary is a massive hypocrite. As usual.
I don't think this is specific to "British alcohol culture". I take it you haven't been on a 4 hour delayed charter holiday flight from Helsinki to Greece. Now THAT was an ugly scene.
It's funny how some think that almost of the alcohol abuse in Europe emanates from Brits.
Your average Finn or Slav could drink any random Brit under the table without even breaking into a sweat.
Don't even get me started on the Russians. Even when they're barely out of kindergarten they can drink enough vodka to kill an elephant and that's just as they're getting into their stride.
Northern and eastern European culture
@Cirrus - Of course people in other parts of Europe drink too, maybe even more. But the issue here isn't people having alcohol in their blood, the issue is people being disruptive on board. This is indeed much more problematic within the British drinking culture where getting rowdy is almost part of the casus beli for drinking in the first place. Your average Czech or whatever will drink 15 beers and fall asleep.
The fact that the average Finn or Slav can drink any random Brit under the table without even breaking into a sweat is the point - the Finns and Slavs in that situation will generally not cause significant disruption to other passengers, unlike the Essex Boys.
Interesting comments, I appreciate your detail, importViking. When you mentioned Boozer Expresses, do you just mean something like Frankfurt/Hahn to party islands, or any flight to Ibiza? And would you consider a SWISS-flown Geneva to Ibiza to also be one of them?
I think this is likely a result of the clientele. When a significant part of the business model is transporting lower income Brits to holiday destinations as the lowest possible cost, there will obviously be consequeneces.
This is the exact same reason Spirit Airlines was most often in the news for their passenger dustups.
He is correct. Why on earth does anyone need pints of larger at 5am ? Those who do have a problem,
You see it at airports such as Stansted and Luton. Far less so at Heathrow.
STN at 5am has 100s of travellers downing beers with a full English breakfast.
Try Newcastle, Manchester or Liverpool.
Having a pint or two WITH a „full English Breakfast“ is not really the problem. Having the pints INSTEAD of the breakfast is…
Nothing better than a breakfast beer .
It's 5AM somewhere...
In my observation, 9/10 diversions because of unruly passenger is flight from/to UK... and passenger is British....
Many people fail to realise that Ryanair serves about 5,442 airport pairs. Or, about 240 destinations in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Any alcohol abuse problem is not totally a UK phenomenon.
What people also fail to acknowledge is that O’Leary is one very canny publicist. The subject outburst of controversy is nothing new for the leprechaun. Any publicity is good publicity, especially if it is cost free.
People who want to get intoxicated will get intoxicated, no matter the restrictions. They'd drink duty-free alcohol (illegal, I know), they'd bring their own in cabin bags (there is no longer the 100mL liquid rule in the UK), they'd drink at the lounge, whatever.
I think the problem is rather the alcohol consumption in the UK. France doesn't have strict alcohol rules and you don't often see intoxicated people in airports.
It is always noon somewhere in the world. I appreciate not many are transiting from another airport if they are flying Ryan scare out of the UK, but when it is 5 am in Manchester it is noon in Beijing
The solution to this is better enforcement of existing regulations against transportation of alcohol impaired passengers, rather than simply banning service altogether. The problem isn't the alcohol service but rather the people who abuse it.
It is easier to blame the individuals, rather than to attempt to manage or solve the systemic issue (access to alcohol in these circumstances); though, in some cases, yes, it is the individuals' misbehavior that is the actual problem. Like, people could choose to drink responsibly (maybe 1 or 2 beers at 5AM... wait, that doesn't sound very 'responsible'...) Bah!
@1990 - Access to alcohol is always available to alcoholics short of a total Saudi-style prohibition. Duty Free stores sell booze and you can always disappear to a corner and top up a water bottle with a clear liquid of unknown provenance.
Well said, Sean M.
Michael O'Leary is yet again leveraging this (and any) issue, which has a straightforward solution, as you've noted. This is to generate free publicity and potentially explore a time-limited monopoly on alcohol sales to a captive audience. If such a restriction were imposed, how many Ryanair flights would be rescheduled to depart before the morning cutoff? And it's easy to imagine the marketing campaign that would follow, promoting onboard alcohol...
Well said, Sean M.
Michael O'Leary is yet again leveraging this (and any) issue, which has a straightforward solution, as you've noted. This is to generate free publicity and potentially explore a time-limited monopoly on alcohol sales to a captive audience. If such a restriction were imposed, how many Ryanair flights would be rescheduled to depart before the morning cutoff? And it's easy to imagine the marketing campaign that would follow, promoting onboard alcohol on FR flights as the alternative to airport bars.
In the UK it would be a change to the licensing for the establishments selling alcohol including duty free and yes each lounge will have its own licence. I would imagine any changes would impact all that hold them so not easy to implement without complete agreement.
Walking through Manchester airport at 530 in the morning was quite a culture shock. People are drinking to get drunk not to have one celebratory drink to start their holiday. I think you underestimate the problem. They then get on the plane and want more drinks. It’s the only place I’ve seen fellow passengers having wine and Pringles for breakfast at 7am.
I agree - I saw the same in Gatwick at 5am last summer.
I still have memories of my time flying out of Manchester early in the morning. I would get to airport lounges around 4:30am and people were already drinking beer non stop. The most disgusting part was them going to the plane bathroom bear foot during flight.
Also it’s convenient how he is saying this (and getting the associated press coverage that comes with it) right in the middle of the booking window for the busy summer season…