Ryanair boss flays aviation critics

The boss of Europe’s largest budget airline today called for an informed debate on the industry’s impact on climate change.

Outspoken Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary criticised what he termed “middle class angst” about air travel’s contribution to global warming.

In a characteristically blunt attack, he rounded on politicians and “environmental nutters” for “persecuting” the aviation industry by raising concerns about its effect on the planet.

The outburst comes days after England's environment minister Ian Pearson branded Ryanair the “irresponsible face of capitalism” for opposing an EU carbon emissions scheme.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has also entered the fray, insisting that he would not sacrifice long-haul holiday flights to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr O’Leary, who expects his airline to overtake Lufthansa as the biggest carrier in Europe by the end of this year, said figures show that air travel compares favourably with other polluters.

In a reaction to his critics, he said: “There’s a lot of bull**** being peddled, mainly by a couple of environmental nutters, that aviation is the cause of global warming, climate change and everything else.

“Air transport isn’t. Every statistical record confirms air transport generates just 1.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions – that’s if you believe the Stern Report.

“If you believe EU environmental agency figures it’s 1.8%. Either way it’s less than 2%. So all of the middle class angst and worrying about flying and whether its going to damage the environment is all a load of bull****.”

The airline boss, who recently bought 167 new aircraft, said Ryanair was going to increase its passengers in Europe to over 50 million by March 2008 and double its traffic by 2012.

He insisted that the way to reduce the carbon footprint from flights was to push airlines to upgrade their planes to new models that create 50% less emissions per seat, 45% lower fuel burn and 45% less noise.

“We believe that governments can take sensible measures to reduce the impact on the environment of aviation, but that means actually targeting the polluters and rewarding the people who are environmentally friendly, such as Ryanair,” he said.

“What you should be doing is penalising the old gas guzzlers, the business class airlines flying around with low load factors and people encouraging connecting travel, which requires people to take two flights to get to their destination instead of one.”

Referring to EU statistics, Mr O’Leary claimed that marine travel was a bigger CO2 polluter than aviation, yet didn’t attract any of the controversy.

“I have yet to see articles all over the press that we should do something about the ships and the ferries – not a peep out of them. For some reason it’s always the airlines and aviation that seem to be the target for these nutbags,” he said.

“It’s time we had a more sensible debate, preferably illuminated with some facts on the matter. Aviation is not the cause of climate change, nor is it the solution to climate change – it hasn’t been for many years and isn’t now.”

Announcing two new flights from Dublin to Poland as part of 115 new routes planned for this year, the Ryanair boss slammed competitors for not reducing fuel surcharges in line with a sharp drop in oil prices.

“There is a fuel surcharge scam going on all over Europe,” he said.

“These aren’t discretionary, you can’t avoid them. They all said they would review them as oil prices fall. We said it would be a cold day in hell by the time they’d be reducing these fuel surcharges. We’ve been proven correct.”