Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary has said it is “absolutely” appropriate to compare other airlines to “rapists”.
The billionaire businessman made the remarks ahead of his airline’s annual general meeting in Dublin on Thursday.
Mr O’Leary claimed rising air travel prices at other airlines would see passengers switch to Ryanair.
He told reporters at the company’s headquarters: “You might find some people will choose not to fly with Ryanair – but you know they’ll be overrun with the people abandoning Aer Lingus, Lufthansa, BA, and others desperate to get to Ryanair’s low fares because they can’t afford to fly with the high-fare rapists around Europe.”
He later repeated the “high-fare rapists” comments.
Asked whether this was appropriate language, Mr O’Leary told reporters: “Absolutely.”
Challenged on whether it was offensive to victims of rape and sexual assault, he said he would “happily offend” the airlines mentioned.
Further pressed on whether the language was trivialising rape, he said: “That’s what I call high-fare airlines like Lufthansa, BA, and others.”
Mr O’Leary also repeated his calls for the chief executive of National Air Traffic Services (Nats) to stand down after technical issues with air traffic control systems caused more than 2,000 flights arriving or departing the UK to be cancelled since Tuesday.
Speaking of Martin Rolfe, Mr O’Leary said: “He keeps hiding behind safety.
“You know, you can’t run a safe airspace by grounding every aircraft. You know, it’s nonsense, so we think he should go.”
He added: “But then, it’s 49 per cent owned by the UK Government, and they’re clearly trying to protect him.
“It is beyond my comprehension how the guy who has visited three collapses on UK ATC (air traffic control) is asked to do the investigation into his own screw-ups. So we think he should be sacked and somebody competent brought in to do the job.”
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs on Wednesday she had asked the Civil Aviation Authority to conduct an independent review into the incident, which is due to report to her within six months.