Ryanair boss suggests bringing in army to end airport travel chaos

theguardian.com:

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has suggested the army be drafted into UK airports for the next “three to four months” to help resolve the widespread disruption that has peaked over the half-term break.

The airline chief executive said “defence personnel with experience providing security” should be deployed at under-pressure transport hubs to prevent the lengthy queues and delays that have plagued passengers this week.

He told ITV News: “Bringing in the army, which they do at many other European airports, would, at a stroke, relieve the pressure on airport security and would mean that people have a much better experience – not just this weekend, but for each weekend over the next three, four months.”

O’Leary also hit back at claims made by the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, on Wednesday that travel firms have “seriously oversold flights and holidays relative to their capacity to deliver”.

Shapps, who met with aviation leaders on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the problems, had also said there should be “no repeat” of the disruption tourists have faced in the half-term holidays over the summer months.

O’Leary said no airline operator “is going to deliberately sell a flight that they can’t crew or operate” and that crew shortages often happened at very short notice.

He added: “Army personnel, defence personnel who are good at providing security could relieve the pressure. And that would be something useful that this government could do instead of blaming the airports or the airlines, which doesn’t solve anything.

“We are going to have pinch points at the UK airports right through to the end of this summer until the kids go back to school in September.

“And I believe that the best way of solving these pinch points … is to deploy