Ryanair boss: a hard Brexit could halt flights and hit jobs

‘Catastrophic disruption’: Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary warns the UK’s £127-billion-a-year tourist industry could face a severe hit: Getty Images
‘Catastrophic disruption’: Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary warns the UK’s £127-billion-a-year tourist industry could face a severe hit: Getty Images

Michael O’Leary has sounded the alarm for the UK’s £127-billion-a-year tourist industry, saying a “hard Brexit” could cause “catastrophic disruption” and hit tens of thousands of jobs.

The chief executive of Ryanair has fired off a warning that flights between the UK and the EU could stop for a period from April 2019 onwards, if a new open-skies agreement is not prioritised in Brexit negotiations.

Ryanair’s warning comes as tourism chiefs fear that record numbers of overseas tourists to Britain could collapse after three terrorist attacks in three months. Last week, Merlin warned visitors were staying away from some of the UK’s biggest attractions.

“The obvious consequence of any such cessation of all flights between the UK and the European Union for a period of time from the end of March 2019 would be deeply damaging for UK tourism, traffic, and tens of thousand jobs at UK airports, within British tourism and the UK economy for as long as such a catastrophic disruption would persist,” O’Leary told the Standard.

Ryanair believes flights between the UK and the rest of the EU could only continue if a new aviation agreement between Britain and the rest of Europe has been reached by March 29, 2019, because aviation is not covered by WTO rules.

The airline is urging that the UK and the EU come to an interim deal over aviation to avoid huge disruption, even though this would mean accepting all EU transport regulations and European Court of Justice rulings during the transition period.

There are concerns that France and Germany want to trigger disruption to UK flights, because British and Irish airlines including IAG, easyJet, Ryanair and UK charters would be disproportionately affected.

Airlines4Europe, a lobbying group for all European airlines, was apparently blocked from taking a common position on Brexit at the insistence of the French and German state-owned carriers.