Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair (FR), who a couple of months ago started an online spat with Elon Musk over the decision to not install Starlink, has renewed his longstanding call for a ban on early morning alcohol sales at airport bars, warning that pre-flight drinking has become a direct and escalating threat to safety in the skies.
Speaking to The Times, O’Leary disclosed that Ryanair is now forced to divert almost one flight per day because of disruptive passenger behaviour — a figure that represents a tenfold deterioration from approximately one diversion per week recorded a decade ago. O’Leary argues that this figure represents a predictable consequence of a regulatory anomaly that has allowed airside bars across the United Kingdom to operate entirely outside the restrictions that govern every other licensed venue in the country.
O’Leary’s proposed remedy is pointed in its simplicity: airports should face the same licensing hours as pubs and bars on the high street, and a hard limit of two alcoholic drinks per passenger — enforced via boarding pass — should apply across all airport outlets, and was quoted in The Times saying:
“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 [those] licensing hours.”
His comments come across the backdrop of the fact that only yesterday, a British Airways (BA) flight attendant was found eight times over the alcohol limit placed. One has to note that Leary has placed the liability for the crisis squarely on airports rather than airlines, framing the issue as a matter of commercial opportunism rather than passenger culture — and his frustration carries the weight of an operator whose bottom line, operational schedule, and crew welfare are absorbing costs that, in his view, originate on the other side of the departure gate.
The Legal Loophole That Has Allowed Airside Bars to Operate Without Restrictions Since 1956
Sales of alcohol at designated international airports in England and Wales have been exempt from the Licensing Act since 1956, originally to ensure airports remained internationally competitive and offered a more enjoyable experience to a growing base of international travelers. The practical consequence is that premises such as bars, restaurants, lounges, and even unmanned beer-tap kiosks (and that are beyond security) do not require a premises license, are not subject to its four licensing objectives, and are not bound by the statutory offence of serving alcohol to a person who is already drunk. That particular offence only applies to premises holding a licence under the Act, meaning an airside bar can legally continue serving a visibly intoxicated passenger with no statutory consequence.
This gap was not ignored by legislators. In April 2017, the House of Lords Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003 recommended that the government revoke the airside “exemption of 24 international airports in England and Wales” in light of a rising number of alcohol-related incidents at airports.
The government launched a Call for Evidence in November 2018, drawing 97 responses from airlines, airports, police, and hospitality operators — yet the conclusion was that the evidence was insufficient to justify extending the Licensing Act airside. The exemption survived intact. In its response, the government acknowledged that airports are effectively self-governing on alcohol sales, relying on voluntary industry codes rather than statutory enforcement.
This is a position that O’Leary and a growing coalition of airlines now regard as wholly inadequate given the data that has accumulated since.
What The Diversions Are Actually Costing Ryanair — And Who O’Leary Blames
The financial anatomy of a single diversion illustrates why O’Leary’s position has hardened. In April 2024, a Ryanair flight from Dublin Airport (DUB) to Lanzarote Airport (ACE) was forced to divert to Porto Airport (OPO) after a male passenger became violently intoxicated, requiring police intervention. The diversion stranded 160 passengers and six crew members overnight, and Ryanair subsequently filed legal proceedings in Ireland seeking €15,000 in damages from the individual responsible.
The following table gives us a breakdown of that claim :
| Cost Category | Amount (€) |
|---|---|
| Overnight Accommodation and Meals | 7,000 |
| Airport Landing and Handling Fees | 2,500 |
| Replacement Crew Costs | 1,800 |
| Portuguese Legal Fees | 2,500 |
| Excess Fuel | 800 |
| Lost In-Flight Sales | 750 |
| Total | 15,350 |
Airline Geeks reported that being drunk on a plane in the United Kingdom is a criminal offence, punishable by a fine of up to £5,000 and up to two years’ imprisonment, though the financial deterrent has evidently not reversed the trend.
O’Leary’s accusation against airports is explicit and commercial in its framing. “We are reasonably responsible,” he said:
“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.”
That characterisation of airports as deliberate exporters of the problem is not purely rhetorical: retail revenue at Heathrow Airport (LHR) reached £492 million in the first nine months of 2017 alone, representing 23 percent of total revenue. Here’s a table that shows the retail revenue in other airports:
| Entity | Scope | Retail Revenue | Period | Share of Total Revenue | Insight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gatwick Airport | Single airport | £98 million | 6 months to Sept 2017 | 21% | Retail (including alcohol) is a key income driver |
| Manchester Airports Group (MAG) | Manchester, Stansted, East Midlands, Bournemouth | £164 million | 2016 | 20% | Strong dependence on non-aeronautical revenue streams |
| European Airlines | Industry-wide | Not specified | 2014 | 5.5% | Much lower reliance on retail compared to airports |
Alcohol sales remain a material component of that figure across major UK airport groups. O’Leary’s argument, at its core, is that airports have a structural financial incentive to permit and prolong consumption in ways that directly impose costs on the carriers that subsequently receive those passengers.
O’Leary’s Warns that Alcohol Is Making Passengers More Dangerous
Beyond the financial case, O’Leary has broadened his argument to encompass a qualitative shift in the nature of the disruption itself. He told The Times that the combination of alcohol and drugs has made disruptive passengers considerably more dangerous than in previous decades. “In the old days if somebody had drunk too much, they get on board, they fall asleep,” he said, implying that the passive intoxication of earlier eras has given way to a more combative profile.
He noted that drug use has compounded the issue, leading passengers to become confrontational rather than incapacitated — a distinction with significant implications for crew safety and for the effectiveness of any purely alcohol-focused regulatory intervention. He also stated that female passengers are equally likely to cause trouble as male ones. GB News identified specific route categories as persistent flashpoints: flights from the UK to Ibiza, Alicante, and Tenerife — but also routes from Ireland and Poland, have “seen a growing number of incidents“.
O’Leary’s most arresting statement in the interview carries a deliberately fatalistic edge. He warned that governments would only take the problem seriously “until somebody creates an accident that causes a plane to crash and kills hundreds” — a warning that functions simultaneously as a prediction and an indictment of regulatory inaction.
According to the numbers of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) quoted in Euronews, there was one disruptive incident for every 480 flights in 2023, based on data from more than 24,500 reports across 50 operators worldwide — up from one per 568 flights in 2022.
Ryanair’s Proposed Solution — And How It Compares to the Carrier’s Own Conduct
O’Leary’s specific policy remedy centres on two interlocking measures. The first is the harmonisation of airside alcohol licensing hours with those that apply to high-street venues. The second is a hard cap of two alcoholic drinks per passenger per airport visit, enforced via boarding pass in exactly the same way that duty-free purchase allowances are already tracked.
He added that Ryanair itself rarely serves more than two drinks to any passenger during a flight, positioning the airline as already operating within the standard it is asking airports to adopt. According to The Times, O’Leary has advocated for the two-drink limit for many years.
Ryanair has also moved beyond advocacy into enforcement. A Ryanair spokesperson separately confirmed a minimum £500 fine for any disruption causing inconvenience, and Airline Geeks reported that:
“Diversion costs typically range from £10,000 to £80,000, depending on the size of the aircraft and where it diverts to. Airlines are under no obligation to reimburse or re-accommodate disruptive passengers, who may also face criminal prosecution, including fines of up to £5,000, imprisonment for up to two years, or up to five years if their actions endanger the safety of the flight.”
A report published in Simple Flying said that in August 2021, reports indicated that the FAA had proposed more than $1 million in fines against passengers for alleged unruly conduct during the first nine months of the year. The same report also said that between January and August 2021, the FAA recorded around 3,889 incidents of disruptive passenger behavior, of which approximately 2,867 were linked to violations of the federal face mask mandate in place at the time.
It has also been said that the diversion of an Emirates’ flight can cost from US$50,000 to over US$600,000. The UK Civil Aviation Authority also noted that “disruptive passengers may also be asked to reimburse the airline with the cost of the diversion. Diversion costs typically range from £10,000 – £80,000 depending on the size of the aircraft and where it diverts to.”
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Ryanair’s is Not the only Airline Pushing for Changes
According to Travel and Tour World, EasyJet and Jet2 have both aligned with Ryanair in calling for alcohol restrictions at UK airports during early morning hours. Jet2 is separately lobbying for a national database of disruptive passengers, too.
In evidence submitted to the House of Lords in 2016, Jet2 reported 536 disruptive incidents in a single summer season, with over half attributed to alcohol consumption, and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) recorded a 36 percent increase in disruptive passenger incidents in the UK between 2014 and 2015 alone. According to recent CAA data, there has been a further 10 percent rise in unruly incidents compared to prior years.
All in All
Ryanair’s stance on airside alcohol also sits within the context of a carrier that has simultaneously expanded its own commercial scale substantially. In the first half of Ryanair’s fiscal year 2026, the airline reported profits after tax of €2.54 billion — a 42 percent increase — on revenues of €9.82 billion, carrying 119 million passengers at fares 13 percent higher than the prior year, Aero Time flagged
The carrier fleet of 636 aircraft as of September 2025, making it one of the ten largest in the world. It has a stated ambition to grow from 200 million to 300 million passengers over a decade, and confirmed deliveries of 29 new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft for summer 2026.
Ryanair’s full-year fiscal 2025 results showed a profit of €1.61 billion on record traffic of 200 million passengers, and the airline is cautiously guiding toward pre-exceptional profit of between €2.13 billion and €2.23 billion for fiscal 2026. Every diversion is a charge against that performance — which is precisely why O’Leary’s lobbying on this issue grows louder as Ryanair grows larger.