Give Muslim men extra airport checks, says Ryanair boss
THE chief executive of Ryanair has suggested Muslim plane passengers should face extra security screening at airports “if that is where the threat is coming from”.
Michael O’leary said in an interview that airport security measures were a “joke” and passengers should instead be profiled for potential threat. He said the restrictions for liquid on flights would do little to protect the public, adding that “most airport security is utterly useless”.
Asked how the Government could improve security, he said screening passengers could be a solution.
He told The Times: “Who are the bombers? They are going to be single males travelling on their own. If you are travelling with a family of kids, on you go; the chances you are going to blow them all up is zero.
“You can’t say this 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.”
Mr O’leary, who is from Ireland and has worked for Ryanair for more than 30 years, was also reported to have made comments about disabled and overweight passengers. The newspaper reported him saying: “If you have complete monsters you may need to buy two seats, but we are not in Europe the way they are in North America, where it’s a huge issue.”
Mr O’leary’s reported comments triggered a backlash last night.
A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Great Briain told the newspaper: “He advocates discrimination against ‘males of a Muslim persuasion’, which presumably is not based on specific intelligence but solely whether someone ‘looks or acts like a Muslim’. This is the very definition of Islamophobia.”
Mr O’leary’s views on how profiling could work in practice were also called into question, with an expert saying it traditionally only factors in risks such as previous journeys and where the flight has arrived from.
The airline chief was also reported to have expressed resentment at the disabled provisions he has had to add to his office in Dublin.