News: Legal row escalates between Ryanair and government
Flights > News > # 921 (25/08/2006)
Ryanair is to sue the British government for £3.3m for losses it says it has suffered because of tighter aviation security.
The no-frills giants gave the government until August 25 to get security procedures back to normal following the introduction of strict measures at British airports in the aftermath of the foiling of an alleged plot to bomb transatlantic flights. Passengers are currently restricted to taking one small piece of hand luggage, and are subject to far more frequent searches than before the terror alert. Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary said the security clamp down was giving the terrorists a victory. “It is a shambles and a cock-up. Two weeks after the events of August 10, the government has still failed to get UK security back to normal,” Mr O’Leary said.
Ryanair has called for larger briefcases to be allowed as hand luggage and for the current policy of searching every second passenger passing through X-ray security to be relaxed. The carrier has also claimed it is "nonsensical" to reduce hand luggage on outbound flights but not on inbound services. Ryanair said it would give any potential proceeds from their legal action to charity.
The government has said it will not pay compensation or “compromise security” by easing travel restrictions until the threat level has significantly receded. It said the 1982 Aviation Security Act gave it the power to implement measures for the safety and protection of the travelling public.
A spokesman for the Department of Transport said they do not believe Ryanair has any legal grounds, adding: “We continue to face a serious security threat and we will not compromise security.”
But Ryanair plans to use provisions within the 2000 Transport Act to seek compensation for losses incurred between August 10 and 16, the period in which the government put a complete ban on passengers carrying any hand luggage onto flights leaving the UK. The measures led to chaos at Heathrow and other major UK airports as hundreds of flights were cancelled and thousands of passengers were hit by serious delays.
Restrictions have been eased slightly, but the measures have received widespread criticism within the aviation industry. British Airways, which has suffered more cancellations than any other airline during the crisis, has said it is considering seeking compensation from airports operator BAA for failing to handle airport security efficiently.
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We are not qualified to comment on the intricate details of airport security policy, so it comes down to whether you trust the publicity seeking airline boss or the heavily discredited government. It is a tough choice, but I’ll go with the airline boss because I can’t help thinking that security policy is lead as much by knee-jerk reaction as it is by any kind of rational approach.
One of Mr O'Leary's key points is that there is no sense in allowing briefcases, but banning other forms of hand luggage like an overnight bag. His argument is that both must be equally safe, or equally dangerous.
The simple reality as we see it is that the aviation industry will collapse if electronic devices such as laptops have to be carried in checked baggage. Business passengers are the bread and butter of most airlines, and they are not going to accept the risk of theft and damage associated with putting fragile equipment in the hold.
Cynics will quite rightly point out that this is all about money, especially considering that it is often these high farepaying business passengers who enable so many otherwise unprofitable routes to remain viable. If financial concerns have already brought about a rapid return of the laptop and those other two travel ‘essentials’ - the mobile phone and the digital camera - then why continue to have such a restrictive policy on the size of cabin baggage, and why continue to search every other passenger? The government are unlikely to back down on this issue – they don’t want to be seen to being dictated to by newspaper headlines or airline executives, after all, we are in the middle of the War on Terror (what ever that may be!).
Meanwhile, Ryanair are at pains to point out that they are not trying to profiteer from the current security situation, and have stated that they will donate the proceeds of any successful legal action to charity. Cynical observers will read this as an admission that their claim has little chance of success, and there is no doubt that Ryanair will benefit from the publicity that this case will bring, whatever the outcome. It will also deflect their own passengers' frustrations at the recent delays away from them and directly onto the door of the Home Office and Department of Transport. But there is also no doubt that the no-frills giants have genuine and legitimate concerns about the manner in which the government is handling security at British airports. Other airlines obviously feel the same, it just happens that Ryanair is the only one with the backbone to do anything about it.
