Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary hits out at the U.K. government, warning against tax increases on the airline sector and saying Chancellor Rachel Reeves “hasn’t a clue how to deliver growth”.

London

Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary has strongly criticized the UK government's plan to increase Air Passenger Duty (APD), stating that the tax rise will significantly impact average fares and could make travel prohibitive for families. O'Leary claims that abolishing APD outside London would stimulate regional growth and offset the budget cost through increased consumer spending and tourism.

O'Leary also noted that other European countries, such as Sweden, Hungary, Croatia, and Italy, are abolishing environmental taxes to encourage growth. He warned that if the UK continues to raise taxes, airlines may shift capacity to countries with lower fees, and highlighted similar challenges with rising airport fees in Spain, prompting Ryanair to reallocate aircraft to more favorable markets.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary slams the UK government

But then you have countries like the UK. Rachel Reeves has put up APD. It rises from another two pounds in April 2026. Our average fare is 45 pounds to and from the UK. But APD is rising to 14 pounds next year. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's a tax of almost 33 percent. For a family of four, it becomes prohibitive. We wrote to Rachel Reeves when she first got elected and said, we can deliver you 50 percent traffic growth, not in London but in the regions of the UK where they really need growth in those red wall seats in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol. You know, just abolish APD outside of London. You know, London is full. London can pay the APD. But abolish it outside of London. It would cost them about two billion on their budget. They would get that back in additional consumer spending, VAT on additional visitors and consumer spending within one year. No response. Are you having, that's probably going to be my follow up, are you having any new conversations with number 11 at this stage ahead of the budget? No, they're hopeless. I mean, we got a stupid letter back from number 11 saying, oh, an increase of two pounds in APD is only one percent of average ticket prices. Now, I don't know where they buy their tickets, but our average ticket price is 45 pounds. So an increase of two pounds is a five percent increase. They can't even do their own maths in horse cars. They're useless. And I think what we hope to do is embarrass them. If even the Swedes, the Hungarians, the Croatians, the Italians get it and they're all abolishing environmental taxes and being rewarded with dramatic growth, even the morons in the Treasury here in the UK might actually begin to learn their lesson. When it comes to, if indeed you face higher taxes in the UK post the budget, where would you allocate the additional new fleet? There is absolutely no doubt if she puts up APD again in the budget, all of the airlines in the UK will move more capacity out of the UK. This is the fallacy of... But where would you be looking? We will go to countries like Sweden abolishing taxes, Hungary abolishing taxes, Croatia, Bratislava, Slovakia abolishing taxes, Italy abolishing taxes. The whole of Europe gets it. They're abolishing environmental taxes because they've failed. They're a break on growth. Nonetheless, though, when it comes to airport fees, you're also facing higher costs in Spain and at the moment there's a bit of a battle there. Give us a state of play of where you are in Spain. I mean, because we're short of aircraft from Boeing this year, we're tight for capacity. So we're having these discussions with airports all over Europe, what we call churn talks. And if an airport is putting up fees at certain airports, as they are in regional Spain, we're moving some of those aircraft to Barcelona and Madrid, where yes, fees are rising slightly, but fares are rising faster than the fees in those airports. We're also moving aircraft out of Spain, out of Germany, out of the regional UK, into Italy, into Sweden and into Croatia. It's a zero-sum game. If governments are stupid enough to tax mobile assets like aircraft and air travel, they move. You know, if they're stupid enough here in the UK to tax wealth, wealth moves.

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