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Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary believes a ban on alcoholic beverages will curb bad behaviour onboard early-morning flights. Passengers have other thoughts.
Airports are strange places – the epitome of a third space. We do lots of things at the airport that we wouldn’t do anywhere else: spend an inordinate amount on a WHSmith sandwich; buy a comically large Toblerone; decide we need a new perfume or pair of sunglasses. But perhaps the most universal and bizarre airport ritual is the early morning drink.
No matter the time of day, plenty of us will sit and enjoy an alcoholic beverage before taking off on holiday. It’s part of the experience, with the airport promising a liminal space where normal time – and the responsibilities of everyday life – no longer exist.
Even the most conservative drinkers are known to sip a glass of fizz in the airport lounge. But if Michael O’Leary, head of Ryanair, gets his way, the early-morning airport sip might be a thing of the past.
O’Leary is calling for a ban on these pre-holiday beverages in an effort to curb disruptive behaviour on flights.
Ryanair is no stranger to controversy. The budget airline is known for poking fun at customers as part of their social media marketing, exaggerating the cost-cutting tactics that have previously landed the company in hot water. But while their comments about cheap seats and poor leg room might go viral online, targeting airport alcohol might be a step too far.
Speaking to the Times, O’Leary said: ‘It’s becoming a real challenge for all airlines. 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?’
Be that as it may, airport hospitality is known to run at all hours due to the movement of passengers, with many crossing time zones during layovers. Where the airport lounge is concerned, time really is an illusion.
In the UK specifically, airport bars are not required to follow restrictions on opening hours that apply to other venues selling alcohol. But O’Leary says Ryanair has rarely served more than two drinks per passenger and is calling for a two-drink limit to be introduced at the airport as well.
‘We are reasonably responsible, but the ones who are not responsible, the ones who are profiteering off it, are the airports who have 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,’ he said.
