Ryanair CEO calls Commission President Ursula von der Leyen 'useless'

Now, beyond France, people have also been taking to the streets of Spain, Portugal and Italy to protest over the cost-of-living crisis and rising fuel prices. Unions want lower prices, higher pensions and more money in their pockets. For the view from industry here, I'm joined now by Michael O'Leary, CEO of Europe's largest and most profitable airline group, Ryanair. Good morning, Michael O'Leary. Morning, Maeve. Great pleasure to be here. Lovely to have you. Look, when you see the wave of protests and industrial strikes all across Europe, as the CEO of such a successful company, do you relate to these concerns? I do. I mean, you know, we live in Europe where, you know, we have fundamentally failed to be competitive. You know, the Draghi report is two years old. It is sat on the shelf gathering dust. Ursula von der Leyen talks about competitiveness and does absolutely nothing about it. You look at our sector in air transport, which has been one of the great successes of the European Union, the deregulation, liberalisation of air travel, brought about the growth of low-fare airlines like Ryanair. You can now fly across the continent for 50 euros. It is one of the very few industries where we out-compete the Americans. They're ahead of us in AI, they're ahead of us in IT. When it comes to air travel, we're much cheaper in Europe than they are in the US. And yet, what are we doing? We're raising environmental taxes on air travel, which results in higher fares. You have that ship of fools in the European Parliament redesigning more regulations designed to increase the cost of air travel when consumers want lower fares. We keep growing every year because consumers want what we deliver, which is really low fare affordable air travel. and yet our politicians and our regulators here in Europe add complexity, add regulation and add cost to consumers' lives. And this wave of protests, as you can see, consumers are feeling the pinch. They want more money in their pocket. Is this really just a taste of what is to come? Because as you say, we're not very competitive here in Europe. We're an ageing continent. That doesn't mean we can't be more competitive. You have the AI bringing about a huge, large reduction in efficiency. We can be more competitive. I mean, I'm here in Brussels today, you know, unfortunately I'm announcing Ryanair's winter schedule. This winter we're cutting a million seats out of Belgium. We're reducing our capacity in Zaventem and Charleroi. We're going to reduce by 20 routes this winter. Why? Because the De Wever government has increased air travel from two euros per ticket to seven euros per ticket. And as the Belgians increase air taxes on air travel, the Slovaks, the Swedes, the Italians, the Hungarians have abolished air travel. We're moving aircraft to those countries who are competitive. Belgium is not competitive. France is not competitive. Germany is hopelessly uncompetitive. And yet the way forward is to reduce the tax burden on our citizens and do that by driving down the tax on air travel. So what's your message to France and Belgium? Get more efficient. Stop raising taxes. Consumers around Europe, citizens around Europe want lower taxes, particularly on things like air travel, so they can travel affordably, meet friends and family across Europe. And we have a scandal in Europe. We tax, we apply environmental taxes only to intra-EU flights. We don't tax the Americans. We don't tax the Asians. We don't tax the Chinese. They can, despite the fact that their flights account for more than 53% of Europe's CO2 emissions, we exempt them. You know, nobody would design a stupid system like this other than the European Parliament and Ursula von der Leyen. If you're serious about competitiveness, tax the Americans when they land here in Europe. We should have a fair and reasonable environmental tax on all flights landing in Europe. But they're afraid to go there, right? They don't want to go there. Of course they're afraid to go there. Ursula von der Leyen's afraid to do anything except talk. You know, she's useless. We have, Europe has a roadmap for being more competitive. It's called the Draghi Report. Two years later, not one of its recommendations has been implemented. And Ursula von der Leyen hides in the Berlaymont, doing nothing except giving speeches. If the Draghi Report was implemented, how could Europe look? We would be a dramatically more efficient society. I mean, if you look at air travel, they said, look, we should reduce the environmental tax burden on air travel, which is absolutely sensible and we should reform ATC in Europe. RTC, ATC in Europe accounts for more than 90% of flight delays and yet the airlines have to provide compensation and right to care expenses for passengers because of those delays but we're not allowed to recover those costs from the people who cause over 90% of the delays which is air traffic control. Why has there been no reform of air traffic control for 20 years in Europe? Because we have useless politicians like von der Leyen talking about being competitive but doing nothing about it. And meanwhile Well, the reality for consumers, for those who like to catch a plane, airfares are going up and they'll keep going up. Well, I mean, they won't necessarily keep, they're going to go significantly up in the next 12 months for two reasons. One, because of the higher cost of fuel. We're hedged in Ryanair this year at about $67 a barrel. Next year, our oil price will double. And the second reason airfares are going up is because of increases in ETS, environmental taxation, on only intra-European flights, while we exempt all the American flights, the Asian flights. But that's a reality you can't just ignore either. Of course it's not a reality. The reality is if you want to fly to Europe, if you want to land and take off in Europe, the Americans, the Asians, the Chinese should pay their fair share. We shouldn't be exempting them who create the greatest amount of emissions while we only tax the poor, dumb European citizens travelling around visiting friends and family. And are you planning a surcharge for the fuel? No, no, we will, Ryanair, we guarantee no fuel surcharges, but there is no doubt that airfares are going to rise significantly in 2027 because of much higher oil prices. OK, Michael O'Leary, CEO of Ryanair. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming. Great to be here. on EuroNews.