RYANAIR CEO Michael O'Leary has warned that flights to and from Britain may have to be halted for a period post-Brexit.
Mr O'Leary made the remarks during a press conference in Dublin yesterday while the airline announced a record number of bookings on their summer schedule.
During the questions and answers portion of the conference, Mr O'Leary was asked about the repercussions on flights to and from Britain.
"There's a real possibility that there may not be a framework for flights between the EU and Britain, in which case we're all back on boats for a period of weeks or months," he said.
Mr O’Leary and Ryanair’s chief commercial officer, David O’Brien, said the airline was prepared for a “worst-case scenario” where Britain is no longer part of the EU’s Open Skies agreement after Britain leaves Europe in March 2019.
The Open Skies agreement allows any airline of the European Union and any airline of the United States to fly between any point in the European Union and any point in the US.
To leave the EU, but maintain the Open Skies agreement, would mean that Britain would have accept both European Court of Justice rulings and freedom of movement of EU citizens.
If the EU and the British Government fail to reach an alternative agreement to the Open Skies agreement by the time Britain leaves the EU in March 2019, Mr O'Leary warned they may be no flights between Britain and Europe, including Ireland.
The decision to halt flights to and from British airports may be made as soon as December 2018, Mr O'Leary explained, as airlines plan their seasonal schedules months in advance and Ryanair will have to make decisions about where it bases aircraft for 2019 by the end of the previous year.
The airline boss also warned that aviation legislature post-Brexit might drive home the full consequences of leaving the EU as British citizens could 'end up taking their 2019 summer holidays in Scotland instead of Spain.'
Michael O'Leary also predicted that: "For Ireland, for all the talk we'll go on with, we'll have a hard border imposed on us between here and the north of Ireland.
"There will be no free movement of people," he said, "I suspect the Common Travel Area may come under severe strain because you can't have Britain be seen to leave he EU and not suffer."
