Britain has no choice but to agree an orderly exit from the European Union because the disruption of a hard Brexit would be too damaging to the British economy and to peace in Ireland, Ryanair's group chief executive Michael O'Leary said today.
Once the "political craziness" in Britain has played itself out, Europe's largest low-cost carrier does not expect an impact on its business, Mr O'Leary said at a Reuters Newsmaker event in London.
"If you look out long enough, I don't think Brexit has any effect on our business," Mr O'Leary said.
He said this was on the basis that ultimately Britain would have no choice but to make a trade deal and retain the Open Skies aviation agreement with the EU.
"It's nuts to leave (the EU), but if you are going to leave, the first thing you've got to do on the day after you leave is renegotiate a trade deal with the European Union," he stated.
The Ryanair boss had campaigned for Britain to remain in the EU in the June 2016 referendum and was one of the most vocal airline executives highlighting the risks of Brexit to the sector.
Since then, Britain and the European Union have agreed a deal to allow flights to continue in the short-term.
Mr O'Leary said he has come to the conclusion that the damage of a British no-deal exit would be too severe.
"I don't think there's anybody who would want to be the UK Prime Minister who leads the UK out on a no-deal scenario. There will be food shortages, there will be medicine shortages," he said, adding that ports would also be disrupted.
"It's going to fall apart at Dover and Calais. And I can't imagine that even (Boris) Johnson would want to be the Prime Minister who visited that on the UK," he told the London event.
But long-term optimism does not diminish the threat of uncertainty in the coming weeks, Mr O'Leary said.
"Am I confident of anything in the next five to ten weeks? No. I have no idea what's going to happen," he said.
He added that the UK government would ultimately be forced to return to a deal along the lines of that brokered by former British Prime Theresa May but rejected in parliament.
Michael O'Leary said any introduction of border infrastructure could lead to violence.
"I'm not sure how you can go back to checks anywhere, on the border, five miles away from the border, that won't ultimately become a target for a tiny minority of misguided individuals," he said.
"We should be very careful," he added.
Speaking at the London event, the Ryanair CEO also said the airline will wait until the next turn of the cycle before it can place an order for more Boeing or Airbus jets at cheaper prices.
Ryanair is one of the biggest customers of Boeing's grounded 737 MAX aircraft, with 135 firm aircraft orders and 75 options.
Michael O'Leary said the company's shift to a group structure could see the company take on Airbus jets into its fleet in the medium term.
"There will be opportunities there, but at the moment there are no pricing opportunities on aircraft. The MAX has been grounded, Airbus are pricing up, Boeing are pricing up because they've nothing to sell," he said.
"I think we have to wait for the next turn in the cycle," he added.
When asked if he was stepping back from Ryanair, Mr O'Leary said no. But he said he is looking for "fewer distractions" and is selling some horses to free up his weekends.
He also said he believes his potential €100m bonus over the next five years, agreed at the company's AGM last month, was "sensible".
The Ryanair CEO said the media's focus should be on "Premier League footballers", adding that his bonus was "an easy" target for it.
Meanwhile, Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has criticised Britain's aviation regulator, saying its soft licencing rules contributed to the chaos around Thomas Cook's bankruptcy.
Micheal O'Leary, whose low-fare model has squeezed less competitive rivals, said the tour operator model was "dead" and Thomas Cook's collapse last week was no surprise.
He said that some responsibility lay with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for granting Thomas Cook a licence to operate without demanding more proof that they would survive.
"How you can license Thomas Cook in April as fit to fly for another 12 months and then it goes bust in September. (It) is something the CAA needs to address," Mr O'Leary said at the Reuters Newsmaker event in London.
"The CAA should be much more aggressive in requiring the shareholders of those companies to put up much more cash to get through the year, rather than allowing them to continually fail."
Thomas Cook's UK airline immediately folded when the company went into administration, although its German Condor airline is still flying and has been offered a bridging loan by the German government.
Thomas Cook's Scandinavian airline is also still flying.
Michael O'Leary speculated that Germany's Lufthansa might ultimately buy Condor, whose CEO today said that there would eventually be a new owner of the airline, according to Die Zeit.
The Ryanair boss also said that the airline is not interested in Condor.
However, he said he was talking to leasing companies about taking on Thomas Cook's Airbus planes for Ryanair group's Lauda airline, and could take on some of the travel group's pilots if they could be trained by next summer.
Mr O'Leary said the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX in March, following two fatal crashes, had hampered Ryanair's ability to grow quickly to take advantage of the opportunities from Thomas Cook's collapse.
He added that Ryanair now hoped its 737 Max orders would be fulfilled for next summer.
With 135 of the Boeing jets on order and 75 options, Ryanair is one of Boeing's biggest customers for the latest 737.
"It will slow down our growth in summer 2020, which is a pity," Mr O'Leary said.
"When opportunities come up like the failure of Thomas Cook, we want to be able to grow faster," he said. "But safety is the first priority."
Michael O'Leary said that while it was easy to point at management when a company fails, Thomas Cook's problems ran deeper than the current board as the company's whole business model was fundamentally outdated.
"The package market I think is screwed, it's over. It's like whoever was making shoes for horses when there were horse-drawn carriages," he said.
"There were some good, well-managed horse-shoe companies but ultimately they went the same way as well and that will happen with tour operators here in Europe."
The group CEO of Ryanair also today urged the US and European Union to pull back from a tariff war over aircraft subsidies and said he would ask Boeing to "eat" any counter-tariffs imposed on the US firm by the EU.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is expected to give the green light this week to US tariffs on billions of dollars of European goods, including Airbus jets, in a move likely to be mirrored by European tariffs on US planes and goods next year.
"The US can't afford to have a trade war," Michael O'Leary said.
"Boeing is one of its biggest manufacturers and biggest exporters, but something needs to be resolved so I think like most airlines we sit there and hope common sense will prevail at the end of the day, but we don't know how it plays out," he said.
The WTO is expected to publish in the coming days a report by an arbitration tribunal opening the door to US tariffs due to illegal European subsidies for Airbus.
A similar WTO report backing EU tariffs in a parallel case over Boeing subsidies is expected early next year.
Both sides have won partial rulings in their favour during the 15-year-old trade spat, the largest handled by the WTO.
"Ultimately I suspect it gets settled, because I am not sure the aviation industry either here in Europe or the US can survive a tariff war between Boeing and Airbus - there are only two suppliers," Michael O'Leary said.
He suggested a greater burden lay on the EU to resolve the dispute since it sells more planes to the United States than the other way round.
Asked how Ryanair would respond to any EU tariffs on Boeing jets, O'Leary said, "It depends on the size and scale of the tariffs - our starting position is we want Boeing to eat the tariffs.
"If tariffs were to significantly increase the cost of aircraft then I think we have to look at staggering or delaying some deliveries. Some of that will depend on what the availability of aircraft is like over here if that were to happen and what Boeing does and the US does in response," he stated.
Any delays due to the tariff dispute could pose a new threat to Ryanair's growth plans as the airline emerges from the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX jets following two fatal accidents.
Ryanair has cut its fleet growth forecast for the summer of 2020 to 30 Boeing jets from 58 and has said it hopes that deliveries will be back on track by the summer of 2021.
