It’s always possible that petty vindictiveness on the part of the EU will lead to hiccups in air travel around the time of Brexit. But it isn’t going to be true that O’Leary will voluntarily ground Ryanair planes to make us all see the errors of our ways:
Ryanair is threatening to ground its planes after the UK withdraws from the European Union to persuade voters to “rethink” Brexit.
The Dublin-based carrier’s chief executive Michael O’Leary said he wants to “create an opportunity” by making people realise they are “no longer going to have cheap holidays”.
He told an audience of airline leaders in Brussels: “I think it’s in our interests – not for a long period of time – that the aircraft are grounded.
“It’s only when you get to that stage where you’re going to persuade the average British voter that you were lied to in the entire Brexit debate.
“You were promised you could leave the EU and everything would stay the same. The reality is you can leave the EU, yes that’s your choice, but everything will fundamentally change.”
The reason why he won’t is because of this glorious mixture of capitalism and free markets that we live under. Or above if you prefer.
The free markets part means that he’s entirely free to lose money, if he so wishes, for politial reasons. Just as we are equally free to not patronise businesses we don’t like for political, moral or any other damn reason that enters our tiny little minds. You think Starbucks should be paying more tax and you’re going to boycott until they do? You go gal – you should do that in fact. For your £ is a vote, each and every one that escapes your purse.
You decide that your airline won’t sell seats to meat eaters then that’s your right and getting close to your duty dependent upon how strongly you think on the issue.
Freedom’s important stuff.
Capitalism, that lust for lucre, produces the opposite result. Pecunia non olet and all that, we end up divorcing ourselves from such moral or political considerations. We might worry about the organicness of the veg from the greengrocer but we don’t concern ourselves over the manner in which they worship the sky fairy. Do note that that’s not always been true of every society, not even of all in the UK. Northern Ireland used to make that distinction, often enough a town having a Catholic set of shops and a Protestant (g grand father advised his kids to leave in 1921 for as a Papist he wouldn’t be allowed to keep the Post Office licence, something that there would be only one of, while he could keep the greengrocer).
That is, our blended system provides the freedom to discriminate as we wish but also the incentive not to discriminate at all. And the blend of those two is that Ryanair isn’t going to ground the planes to make a political point, just not going to happen.
I note that Ryanair have just announced a load of new routes including to/from Cyprus and the UK.
Strangely, all the remainers that were bleating on that we’d have to walk to the UK after Brexit have been silent on this…
There are clearly issues with mutual recognition of standards in the airline business – and I expect we will end up as members of EASA (which already has several non-EU members). But the idea that Ryanair or BA might have major problems, however pigheadedly the EU Commissars choose to behave, is silly given that the former is based in Dublin (flying Irish registered aircraft) and the latter is a subsidiary of IAG headquartered in Madrid. easyJet might have a bit more of an issue, but the last time I flew with them (Luton-Nantes) it was on an aircraft with an… Read more »
I’ll never give RyanAir my custom. UK and Eire are in the UK+Eire Common Travel Area, so I roll up to the airport with my plane ticket, and after making me empty my bags and repack them, and staind in a queue for an hour, the buggers wouldn’t let me on because I don’t have a passport. So, b***s to them, I caught a train instead. All that Dublin Ferryport asked to see was my train ticket.
Since I started flying Norwegian, couldn’t give a toss. And their check-in at Malaga isn’t half way to Torremolinos, either. Never used Ryanair, anyway. My pound’s been steadfastly voting not to buy anything Irish since they burnt the embassy.
No, RyanAir won’t ground planes, the company is based in an EU state. Same won’t be true of UK based operators wanting to fly to the EU. And they will loose the rights to fly to other countries where they currently rely on EU brokered agreements. Could be quite a mess.
The evil EU has spelled out their wicked plan in detail in a series of “Notice to Stakeholders” documents. Here’s the one that explains about aviation: https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/legislation/brexit-notice-to-stakeholders-air-transport.pdf
We Brits are of course too clever to let slip our plans (although we do have one, honest…)
Who are these UK operators? Not BA (ultimately Spanish owned) and easyJet have several EU-based subsidiaries already. I suppose some of the bucket and spade operators may have difficulties, though I’d be amazed if we don’t end up in EASA much as at present.
The Devil, as they say, is in the detail. Dig into the detail to become informed 😉
Two clues:
“As of the withdrawal date, the operating licences granted to airlines by the United
Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority will no longer be valid EU operating licences. ”
“‘Principal place of business’ means the head office or registered office of a Community air carrier in the EU Member State within which the principal financial functions and operational control, including continued airworthiness management, of the Community air carrier are exercised (Article 2(26) of Regulation (EC) No 1008/2008).”
There’s a very good reason he won’t ground them for long even if he does, competition.
That’s why we like free market capitalism, if one greedy bastard won’t sell us what we want another one will be along quite quickly.
Well, if he no longer wishes to use his highly desirable and very limited in supply (in UK London) landing slots, then they should be allocated to someone else…
Your custom IS a vote, and you ought not keep “voting” for Ryanair to fund this blowhard and his political rants. Unless they offer a really good fare. Gareth, air access to the EU won’t “be quite a mess,” because you have tons of voters who want the ability to fly across borders, and tons of businessmen who profit from that desire and whose full-time jobs are to make it possible. Final reality will not resemble initial bluster. (If we’re lucky, not even with the mindless new US tariffs.) JGH, it is astonishing that, after one is proven unarmed and… Read more »
Yes, agree with that free market stuff, and surrender of privacy is bad, etc. However, the EU is a legal and regulatory framework around an “Ever closer union” vision. We’ve seen what they can do – they don’t care (Greece, Ukraine).
We are putting ourselves outside of a long established legal framework and the EU laws, which apply to us now, will continue to apply to little Blighty after we leave – except now we will be a Third Country.
And I did vote to “Leave the EU”. Perhaps naively thinking that HMG was actually competent to manage the task.