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ARCHIVED - Travel chaos will last throughout the summer with Brexit to blame, says Ryanair boss
Ryanair and easyJet cabin crew are expected to add to the disruption with strikes across Spain in the coming weeks
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary is rarely shy with his opinions and this week has delivered his dire prediction that the current travel chaos, which has seen hundreds of flights cancelled and even more hugely delayed, will continue throughout the summer.
In recent days, cabin crew have entered into the fray, with easyJet flight attendants stationed in Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca and Malaga set to strike at strategic intervals in the month of July. Earlier this week, Heathrow asked airlines to reduce their routes by 10% due to enormous delays in sorting baggage on the ground and easyJet announced it would be cancelling around 11,000 flights this summer as a result of flight caps imposed by Gatwick.
Mr O’Leary said: "I think this problem is going to continue, particularly at those airports like Gatwick and Heathrow, right throughout the summer.
"It will be worse at weekends, it will be better during the week."
The Ryanair chief insisted that his airline is one of the few that are still operating at full capacity, but 24% of its flights were delayed last weekend and his Spanish cabin crew have also announced 6 days of strike action, beginning later this week.
He attributed the shortage of airport personnel to "one of the by-products of the struggle to recover smoothly from two years of COVID lockdown and government mismanagement".
"The UK airlines – BA, easyJet, Tui, Ryanair and others – will get 90-95%, well, Ryanair will get nearly 100% of our people to their destinations, albeit with delays.
"But it will be a less than satisfactory experience and this problem will not be resolved until we start allowing European workers to come in and do the jobs that, frankly, UK people no longer wish to do."
Mr O’Leary has been vociferous in his criticism of Brexit, and blames the UK leaving the EU for some of the problems in garnering enough staff for the airports.
He said: "If we can't attract people to do those jobs like baggage handling, like security at the airport, we're going to have to bring in workers, whether it’s from Ireland or from continental Europe to do them.
"And Brexit is one of the big bug bears in the system – it has introduced enormous labour market inflexibility in the UK."
Keen to put his money where his mouth is, Mr O’Leary was spotted at Dublin Airport last weekend, helping his staff process passengers passing through the thronged security checkpoints and boarding gates.
Michael O'Leary on passport desk at Dublin airport this morning. #boardingcardplease pic.twitter.com/8dtRWWx5Eu
— Gary Dunne (@GaryDunne) October 6, 2015
Image: Archive
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