Rolling Around the Caves

21 August 2006



Ryanair Gives Blair Government Security Ultimatum

Irish airline Ryanair is nothing if not a living kick in the shins to The Establishment. The average fare is under £30, but it carries 100,000 on 737s every day. And the airline is profitable, with the bottom line rising 80% in the most recent reporting period. So, when Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, told the British government it had 7 days to get its security situation sorted out, no one was surprised. Chutzpah isn’t a Gaelic word, but it may as well be.

With the arrests of a couple dozen Brits of Pakistani origin in an alleged terror plot, the lines at Heathrow and elsewhere were huge, and the inconvenience immense. While the new measures may (or may not) make the skies safe, they were making airports and airlines less capable of handling volume – Ryanair’s bread and butter. And the company has said it would sue for compensation under section 93 of the Transport Act of 2000.

The real complaint the airline has is the perceived ineffectiveness of the government’s actions. “These measures are giving the terrorists and extremists an unbelievable public relations success,” Mr. O’Leary said. “They must be rolling around the caves of Pakistan laughing at the British government and the British people at the moment. Look at what we can do with just a couple of mobile phone calls.” He added, “If they allow these restrictions to stay in place, then the government will have handed the extremists an enormous PR victory.”

Mr. O’Leary’s biggest issue is the requirement that big bags get put in the hold rather than in the cabin. This slows his departures and upsets his scheduling. If his fares were ten times what they are, that wouldn’t matter, but he can’t move 100,000 people a day if the hold is stuffed to the rafters on every plane.

Of course, the British Department of Transportation sees things differently, “The security regime in place at UK airports is necessary because of the level of security threat and is kept under constant review. We have no intention of compromising security levels nor do we anticipate changing our requirements in the next seven days.” After all, the DfT doesn’t have to worry about volumes and margins

Still, some changes are necessary, such as the requirement that liquids not wind up in the cabin. This is, simply put, stupid. Captain Mervyn Granshaw, chairman of the British Airline Pilots Association told the BBC, “Do officials really believe that we need to be prevented from using liquids, given that we freely load and carry many thousands of litres of volatile aviation kerosene every day? The measure is illogical and frankly bizarre.” Rolling around in their caves, indeed.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.


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