Ryanair boss O’leary flies into racism storm

RYANAIR chief Michael O’leary has apologised after causing a storm by saying terrorists “will generally be males of a Muslim persuasion”.

But the controversial boss insisted he had been inaccurately quoted.

In a interview, he said single Muslim men travelling alone were the most likely to represent a terrorist threat at airports.

He said: “You can’t say stuff because it’s racism, but it will generally be males of a Muslim persuasion.thirty years ago it was the Irish. If that is where the threat is coming from, deal with the threat.”

The Muslim Council of Britain said: “It is a shame that such racism is being expressed so openly, and that the CEO of a large airline would so want to discriminate against his customers so brazenly.” Ryanair said in a statement that the headline “Airline boss wants extra checks on Muslim men” was inaccurate.

A spokesman said: “Michael was only calling for more effective airport security checks which would do away with much of the unnecessary queues at airport security today for all passengers. He apologises sincerely for any offence caused to any group by today’s inaccurate headline.”

In the interview Mr O’leary described airport security measures as a joke and pointed out how absurd it is that people cannot carry a bottle with liquids over 100ml on to a plane but can still carry two 99ml bottles.

In the same interview, O’leary also suggested that obese people should buy two plane tickets rather than one: “If you have complete monsters you may need to buy two seats.”