The outspoken boss of Europe’s biggest budget airline has laid into Italy, describing the country’s antitrust investigation into the company as a “joke” driven by populist politics.
Speaking at a press conference in Lisbon, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary took aim at Italy’s government as his airline fights an investigation by competition regulators into its pricing of domestic flights.
“It’s just Italian politics,” he said, Reuters reported. “You have a bunch of populists running around in Italy…it’s what populist politicians do.”
Italians elected the far-right Brothers of Italy party, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, to lead its parliament last year. The period since has been defined by new populist and protectionist strategies designed to safeguard Italian industries and “culture.”
O’Leary—whose Ireland-based Ryanair describes itself as “Italy’s favorite airline”—has gotten himself caught up in one of those regulatory rows after seeing his airline expand to become the largest carrier in the country.
In September, Ryanair successfully challenged the legality of Italy’s attempt to cap airline fares to its islands, including Sicily and Sardinia, Reuters reported. The country’s government instead gave the responsibility of setting domestic flight prices to its antitrust body.
Italy initially wanted to intervene on prices in the busy summer and winter months and when the price of a flight the week before its departure was more than 200% higher than average.
However, the decision to hand the case to competition regulators has been criticized by industry bodies.
The group will investigate pricing algorithms on mobile phones to detect unfair pricing practices. However, O’Leary said this ignored the fact that most of the airline’s bookings come from desktop computers, Reuters reported.
Ryanair said in September it would cut its number of domestic flights to Sicily by 10%, owing to planned price cuts by the Italian government.
The airline was then targeted by the antitrust body with a probe “for possible abuse of a dominant (market) position.”
The group believes that by limiting travel agents’ ability to book flights through Ryanair, the airline is trying to bulk out its presence in travel subsectors like hotels and car rentals.
O’Leary’s latest war of words
Ryanair’s O’Leary has regularly found himself at loggerheads with regulatory bodies and government authorities, often using emotive language uncommon for a CEO to get his point across.
He called for the boss of NATS—the group controlling Gatwick’s air traffic—to resign after software failures and staff sickness caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights over the summer.
On Tuesday, the Irish Independent reported a video where O’Leary told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to “get off her backside” to tackle French industrial action.
O’Leary was calling out French air traffic control strikes, which have occurred on 65 days this year, leading to delays and diversions for Ryanair’s flights. He argued that the strikes contravened people’s freedom of movement within the EU.
Italy, which is also a member of the EU, might expect to get caught in a similar debate as the country battles between its own domestic aims and its duties as a member of the EU’s customs union and single market.
