Ryanair unveils UK growth plans but O’Leary trashes ‘Dad’s Army’ air traffic control
Ryanair is planning to create 1,000 jobs in the UK by 2030 as part of a set of ambitious growth plans over the rest of the decade.
The Irish carrier, Britain’s biggest overseas airline investor, said it expects passenger traffic in the UK to grow by 22 per cent from 53m to 65m in the same period.
The growth will be supported by 20 new Boeing Max-10 aircraft worth $2bn, part of a colossal order for 135 of the jets it placed last year.
The new roles include UK pilots, cabin crew and engineers, alongside the opening of a new engineering training facility at Prestwick Airport in Scotland.
Chief executive Michael O’Leary said: “As an island economy on the periphery of Europe, it is vital that Ryanair continues to deliver low-cost air access to and from Europe for our UK citizens and visitors.
“In 2023 alone, Ryanair’s European visitors spent over £4.7bn in the UK, and we will continue to bring millions of European visitors to the UK for the benefit of UK tourism and job creation across all regions of the UK.”
The announcement came as the airline published the findings of an independent report by the consultancy York Aviation.
According to the report, Ryanair flew 53m passengers to and from the UK in 2023, around 20 per cent of UK traffic. It currently operates 600 routes between the country, at 22 UK airports.
York Aviation estimates Ryanair, which is Europe’s biggest airline, added £14bn in GVA to the UK economy last year.
However, O’Leary flagged a number of headwinds looking ahead. He described Air Passenger Duty (APD), a levy unique to the UK which applies to passengers flying to both domestic and international destinations, as an “enormous penalty.”
“Ryanair can continue to grow UK traffic, jobs and tourism but the government must scrap this unfair and unjustified tax for all travel and instead pursue air travel growth policies to promote low-fare connectivity to and from Europe.”
The UK’s air traffic service, NATs, continues to face criticism from airlines over a system outage last August bank holiday, which disrupted thousands of passengers.
O’Leary told reporters at a conference NATs was the closest thing to “Dads Army.”
Staff at the organisation have been criticised for working at home during the meltdown. O’Leary described them as a “bunch of idiots… practising being engineers while they sit at home watching football focus on a Saturday morning on the bank holiday weekend.”
Ryanair has repeatedly called for NATs’ chief executive Martin Rolfe, who raked in a pay package worth £1.3m last year, to resign. “The fundamental problem with NATs is not that it collapses once every busy summer. It’s that they’re badly run. They’re short staffed every Saturday during the summer, because it’s badly run and badly managed,” O’Leary said.
“It comes back to the same complacent mismanagement, which is Martin Rolfe. Overpaid, underworked, ineffective CEO who should in any proper functioning country, resign or be booted out.”
The airline has launched a lawsuit against NATs over the incident.