News: Ryanair demand return to
Flights > News > # 912 (18/08/2006)
Ryanair are calling on the Transport Secretary, Douglas Alexander, to restore security measures at Britain’s airports to "normal" in order to get Britain’s airports and airlines moving again.
The no-frills giants have threatened to take legal action against the Government if they fail to return airport security requirements to the levels they were before the August 10 terror alert by August 25.
Ryanair want to see hand luggage restrictions lifted, the number of passenger body searches reduced, and army or police personnel brought in to help ease the pressure off overburdened airport security staff. The airline say this would allow increased security to be carried out in an emergency without the disruption that has wreaked havoc at British airports since August 9.
Speaking on Friday, Ryanair supremo, Michael O’Leary, said: “The best way to defeat terrorists and extremists is for ordinary people to continue to live their lives as normal.
“It is important that they now restore security at airports to normality and remove some of these nonsensical, and (from a security perspective) totally ineffective restrictions which were introduced last week. If they don’t, and if they allow these restrictions stay in place, then the Government will have handed the extremists an enormous PR victory”, Mr O’Leary added.
Asked whether he supported the idea of racial profiling for airline passengers, Mr O’Leary said security staff had already been doing it for decades. He said: “Screening one in four passengers already allows security staff to profile the passengers they want to pick out. In fact, profiling is probably going to affect football hooligans most because this kind of screening is most likely to pick out single males aged between 20 and 30.”
Ryanair are the only major airline to threaten legal action against the Government, although Mr O’Leary said nobody he had spoken to in the aviation industry thought the current security measures would have any effect on preventing terrorism, adding: “Other airline bosses don't want to rock the boat and mess up chances of getting OBE’s. We're Paddies, so frankly we don't qualify for this system, and we'll say what needs to be said.”
Airport operator BAA have come in for huge amounts of criticism during the security crisis, but Mr O'Leary surprisingly defended them. He said: “I don't like to be nice to monoplistic companies, but how can you expect any organisation to increase its productivity rate by four times at such short notice. They might be out of touch and incompetent, but it is not their fault."
Instead, the Ryanair boss lays the blame firmly with the Government’s committee of “keystone cops” and “securocrats”. “The Government need to stop pretending that these delays are an alternative to death. They are unnecessary and this argument is horse manure. We’ll give the Government credit where it is deserved, they have done a great job if they have prevented a major attack, but the western world is not in danger from lethal cosmetics or of dying from ladies' toiletries,” he said.
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