Ryanair chief says airline unaffected by travel turmoil

The boss of Ryanair has revealed why the budget airline has been left “completely unaffected” by recent travel chaos.

Michael O’leary explained that his company knew that travellers would be rushing to book holidays after the pandemic before other airlines did.

He said: “Some of the other airlines – and it’s a judgment call – didn’t see the recovery coming as early as we did.

“We started recruiting and training new pilots and cabin crew last November, so we began earlier than any other airline.

“The other thing we did very sensibly during Covid is that we didn’t fire thousands of cabin crew or pilots or engineers.”

O’leary also mentioned the importance of keeping pilots and crew flying, whether there are any passengers or not.

The 61-year-old chief executive added: “If a pilot doesn’t fly once a month, they lose their licence.

“You then have to put a pilot back into a simulator for three months to get his licence back.”