Businessman worth $600 million clashes with major airline over beloved airport tradition

It's battle of the budget businesses, as two giants are clashing over a beloved airport tradition. Whether you're a frequent flyer or only get to go on your jollies once a year, you've got to admit the airport experience is often a chore.

If remembering your passports and not packing liquids over 100ml in your hand luggage wasn't enough, you've got to deal with endless queues, delays, and jostling with other passengers. That's before you get to issues with TSA staffing, or holding up the line because your crotch gets you stopped. We'll do whatever we can to make our brief travel time in the airport easier, and with things being so stressful, can you blame many of us for wanting to steady our nerves or relax with a pre-flight drink?

The culture of getting up at 3 am and knocking back a pint in the airports has become a tradition for many Brits going abroad, but in an attempt to stop this, Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary is once again causing a stir in the world of plane news as he looks to step up the airline's stance on tipsy passengers.

We know you tend to feel like you're more drunk in a shorter time while on a plane, so we don’t blame those who skip the airport pre-drinks altogether. For others, this is when the holiday really starts.

As it stands, airport venues are exempt from a licence to serve alcohol, meaning they don't have to stick to traditional operating hours.

O'Leary maintains it's getting harder for airlines to control tanked-up passengers who have one too many before heading to the plane, telling The Times he wants a ban on early morning drinking in airports.

The Ryanair chief exec claims that almost one flight a day is having to be diverted due to disruptive passengers, with the man himself calling out the drinking culture of some passengers: "I fail to understand why anybody in airports bars is serving people at five or six o’clock in the morning. Who needs to be drinking beer at that time?”

Given that Ryanair is the same airline that once teased the idea of charging passengers to use the toilet, and has also toyed with the idea of standing seats, critics have claimed that this is O'Leary's way of ensuring passengers spend more on his in-flight menus that offer alcohol. Still, Ryanair operates strict rules on not over-serving passengers or giving alcohol to those who already seem inebriated.

Giving his own suggestion, O'Leary continued: "There should be no alcohol served at airports outside [those] licensing hours.

“We have been calling for many years for a limit of two drinks per person per airport, why don’t you limit people by boarding pass?”

O'Leary's words have rattled Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin, with his company operating at numerous airports in the UK. Wetherspoons has an impressive market cap of £656.28 million ($893.55 millon) while it's said Martin's net worth sits at around £440 million ($600 million).

In a separate interview with The Times, Martin has slammed O'Leary as introducing a Big Brother-like policy to airports. Martin claimed he's never heard the suggestion that patrons spilling out of his establishments were causing trouble on flights, adding: "It is in everyone’s interests to have good behaviour at airports and on flights.

"A two-drink limit would be extraordinarily difficult to implement, short of breathalysing passengers, and would, in our opinion, be an overreaction — especially since many of the problems stem from incoming flights.”

Looking at Wetherspoons' takings in airports from the past six months, two-thirds are said to have been made up of food, soft drinks, tea, and coffee. Martin concludes that O'Leary's changes would push passengers to “off-trade sales” and consuming alcohol before arriving at the airport.

This isn't the first time these budget behemoths have clashed, and when O'Leary suggested a similar two-drink limit in 2024, Martin noted that Ryanair was still offering 'double-up' drinks offers on its flights.