Banning early morning airport beers is the ‘Big Brother’ approach, Wetherspoon boss says – after Ryanair chief tried to call time on sunrise pints

Wetherspoon boss Sir Tim Martin has hit back at Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary’s call to ban early morning beer drinking at the airport, describing it as a ‘Big Brother’ approach.

Sir Tim said banning the early morning travel ritual followed by many Britons could lead to passengers being subjected to alcohol tests before flying.

He argued that the pub chain, which has a heavy presence at UK airports, earns most of its income from sales of food, soft drinks, tea and coffee rather than alcohol.

But Mr O’Leary said flights were now having to be diverted almost every day because of the bad behavior of drunks, and suggested alcohol sales should be banned at the airport in the morning and a limit of two drinks per person should be introduced.

added this Airport bars are ‘making a profit’ on this issue and ‘passing the problem’ of drunkenness onto the airlines.

While Sir Tim acknowledged that good behavior at airports and on flights is in everyone’s interests, he said: Implementation of these recommendations will be difficult to manage.

he said Times: ‘A two-drink limit would be extraordinarily difficult to enforce, would not allow passengers to breathe and, in our view, would be an overreaction – especially as most of the problems arise from incoming flights.’

Two-thirds of Wetherspoon’s purchases in the last six months did not come from alcohol, Sir Tim said, adding that a ‘significant proportion’ of alcoholic beverages were ordered with meals.

Michael O’Leary said Ryainair was forced to divert flights almost every day due to drunken misbehavior and that airport bars were ‘making a profit’ on this and ‘exporting’ it to the airlines.

He suggested imposing limits could lead travelers to buy alcohol from supermarkets and without a license before arriving at the airport.

Airport Wetherspoon pubs are ‘highly regulated’ and have policies to stop binge drinking, Sir Tim said.

Sir Tim said the problem was being made worse by passengers arriving from other airports ‘where there are probably less controls’, adding that this was a view ‘shared by Mr O’Leary’.

Richard Holden, the Tory shadow transport minister, described Mr O’Leary’s proposals as ‘draconian’ on the peculiar British ‘tradition’.

Mr O’Leary had previously said: ‘I can’t understand why anyone in airport bars is serving people at five or six in the morning. ‘Who needs a beer at that hour?’

Because airport bars are not subject to traditional licensing laws, they can serve alcohol during irregular operating hours.

Mr O’Leary suggested they should be made available for external licensing in the hope of reducing the problem.

He added that Ryanair, unlike airport bars, rarely serves more than two drinks to a passenger on board and is ‘reasonably responsible’ for drinks.

Ryanair and Wetherspoon pubs have clashed over this issue before; Mr O’Leary had made the same call for a two-drink limit at airports in 2024.

Other airlines, such as Jet2, are lobbying for a national database to help ban disruptive passengers from flying on UK airlines.

Being drunk on a plane is a criminal offense and anyone convicted could face up to two years in prison and a hefty fine.

More lawsuits may be filed against passengers who threaten and harass. If the flight must be diverted, offenders may be ordered to pay large damages and face criminal penalties in the country where the plane was forced to land.

There have been several drunken incidents on planes and Ryanair’s boss says flights from Britain to Ibiza, Alicante and Tenerife are the worst for forced diversion.

Ryanair flight landing in Ibiza turned into party chaos as passengers started singing and dancing

Those who attended said the atmosphere was positive and children joined in the fun.

A raucous Ryanair flight from Newcastle upon Tyne to Ibiza on April 26 turned into an air party as dancing passengers ignored irate cabin crew.

Brandon Stephenson later said he received death threats after videos of the noisy flight went viral, racking up more than 250,000 views and 10,500 likes.

In another incident, in May last year, a rowdy British hen party forced an easyJet flight to divert after they were seen smoking in their seats and mistreating cabin crew.

The six men were deplaned in Faro, Portugal, where their destination was hundreds of kilometers from Marrakech.

In another incident, two drunk British passengers on a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Ibiza in August 2020 were seen refusing to wear masks during the pandemic.

A brawl broke out mid-air, resulting in their arrest by Spanish police when they landed.