Ryanair has resigned from the UK Aviation Council and slammed the government-industry body as a “talking shop” and “a waste of time” following its latest meeting on Tuesday.
Michael O’Leary, Ryanair group chief executive, told aviation minister Baroness Vere – who chairs the council – in his resignation letter: “You have delivered zero action and no practical measures.”
He noted the council held a first meeting in February, a second in April was postponed and the third on July 11, and wrote: “It is clear from the first three meetings . . . and your lamentable absence of any action on any of the practical measures proposed by the airlines, that this is a talking shop and a complete waste of time.”
At the Council’s launch in February, Ryanair called on the aviation minister to reduce air traffic delays by improving staff levels at air traffic control body NATS, to improve Border Control staffing and processing times and to push for airspace reform in Europe.
The carrier also called for a reduction in UK visa costs and a restoration of temporary IDs at airports to improve staffing levels this summer.
But in a statement last night, Ryanair claimed: “Baroness Vere and the UK Aviation Council has delivered no action whatsoever on any of these achievable goals.
“At today’s meeting, Baroness Vere proposed a working group comprised of the Department for Transport [DfT] and CAA to promote UK airspace ‘modernisation’.
“This body won’t even report until April 2024, and the DfT has failed to provide any funding to deliver this reform.
“Ryanair regrettably concludes this Aviation Council is a useless talking shop.”
O’Leary said: “We joined the UK Aviation Council in February when transport secretary Mark Harper assured us it would be used as a ‘delivery body’ to improve the resilience of UK aviation.
“This has proved to be an empty promise. There has been no action, no delivery and no improvement in UK aviation, and the Council has become a talking shop for Baroness Vere, government bureaucrats and the CAA.”
He added: “We don’t have time to waste meeting with an ineffective industry council.
“If Baroness Vere wants to deliver change . . . she should disband this useless Council and work with the UK’s major airlines to deliver real and effective change.”
In his letter to the minister, O’Leary wrote: “Since Ryanair has an airline to run . . . we will not participate in any further meetings of this Council which is designed to . . . create an impression of action, when sadly you deliver none.”
A UK government spokesperson told Bloomberg that Ryanair’s decision to quit the council was “disappointing.”
A new airline representative will be chosen in Ryanair’s place for the next meeting of the council.
“The Aviation Council was set up to bring the industry and government together to address shared challenges facing the sector and ensure the UK aviation sector remains one of the strongest and successful in the world,” the spokesperson said.