Europe’s largest low cost carrier is warning holidaymakers to brace for another turbulent summer in the skies, as Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary forecasts widespread air traffic control delays across the continent and a spike in disruptive, alcohol fueled behaviour at airports and on board.

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Ryanair chief sounds alarm on a “messy” summer season

Speaking in an interview with the Independent, O’Leary said he expects air traffic control problems to worsen in the coming months, turning the peak summer season of 2026 into what he described as “another mess” of delays and operational disruption. While winter schedules are currently running relatively smoothly, he argued that the systemic weaknesses of Europe’s air traffic management will be exposed once holiday traffic surges from late spring.

Central to his warning is the expectation of renewed industrial action and staffing gaps at key air traffic control providers, particularly in France, which sits beneath many of Europe’s busiest north south leisure corridors. O’Leary said French controllers are likely to begin striking around May or June, with further disruption on Saturdays and Sundays through the summer. Those stoppages, he predicted, will ripple across the network and hit flights that merely overfly the country, such as services from the United Kingdom and Ireland to Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and beyond.

Ryanair has spent recent years positioning itself as one of the loudest critics of Europe’s air traffic infrastructure, repeatedly insisting that the bulk of delays are avoidable and driven by poor staffing and management rather than genuine capacity limits. O’Leary reiterated that message, arguing that what passengers are told are “capacity restrictions” in fact mask chronic staff shortages at national air navigation providers.

ATC staffing, strikes and the morning “first wave” bottleneck

A key focus of Ryanair’s latest warning is the early morning “first wave” of departures, the bank of flights that leave airports between roughly 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. and set the rhythm for the rest of the day. O’Leary said he believes European regulators should consider financial penalties for air traffic control centers that are not fully staffed for this initial departure window, particularly on peak summer weekends when demand is highest.

His argument is that if controllers can clear the first wave of flights on time, airlines stand a much better chance of running punctual operations throughout the day. When early departures are held at the gate or on taxiways waiting for take off slots, knock on effects build quickly, with late arriving aircraft, crew duty time issues and missed connections compounding the original airspace restriction.

Eurocontrol, the Brussels based coordinator that oversees Europe’s air traffic network, has also highlighted the importance of early rotations. In recent briefings to air navigation providers it has urged them to pay special attention to first departures in order to avoid snowballing delays that can cascade across the continent as the day progresses. Industry figures say that even a relatively small shortfall in staffing or capacity at this stage can reverberate throughout the system, especially during the busy school holiday period.

French and Spanish airspace again in the spotlight

France and Spain, two of Europe’s top tourist destinations and vital transit corridors, feature prominently in Ryanair’s latest volley of criticism. The airline has repeatedly named French air traffic control as the worst offender for delays and cancellations, particularly when controllers walk out over pay and working conditions. Due to the geography of European air routes, flights that have nothing to do with France other than overflying its territory are often forced to reroute or hold, with knock on impacts on schedules across Western and Southern Europe.

In Spain, Ryanair has warned travelers to expect as much as a 20 percent increase in delays this summer because of what it calls a shortage of air traffic controllers in Spanish airspace. The carrier has gone as far as publishing a “League of Delays” table ranking national providers by the number of flights and passengers affected, placing Spain close behind France in terms of disruption. It has publicly urged Spain’s transport ministry to accelerate the hiring and deployment of additional staff in control towers and regional centers before peak season.

Similar complaints have been aimed at providers in Germany, the United Kingdom and Greece, with Ryanair arguing that these countries’ services consistently underperform compared with better staffed and better managed systems in places such as Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Belgium. The airline has accused governments and the European Commission of failing to use their regulatory leverage to ensure national air traffic providers are adequately resourced ahead of the critical summer months.

Millions already hit by delays, as winter disruptions echo into 2026

Ryanair’s rhetoric is backed by a series of statistics the airline has released over the past year as part of a campaign to pressure policymakers. It has claimed that tens of millions of passengers across Europe were disrupted in 2025 due to what it views as mismanagement and understaffing at major air traffic control centers, with France, Spain, Germany, the UK and Greece repeatedly highlighted as the worst performers.

In corporate statements and press conferences, the carrier has detailed how repeated staffing shortages can force national providers to restrict the amount of airspace available or reduce the number of flights they can safely handle per hour. According to Ryanair, this has already led to thousands of delayed and canceled flights at peak times, particularly around major holiday periods such as late summer and the Christmas and New Year travel window.

Late 2025 saw a fresh spike in disruption when more than 3,000 Ryanair flights were delayed between 22 and 31 December, affecting some 600,000 passengers. The airline attributed these problems largely to shortages at air traffic control centers in Spain and France, and used them as evidence that Europe’s system is ill prepared for another record breaking summer of leisure travel in 2026.

Calls for EU level reform and accountability

Beyond warning travelers, Ryanair is using its latest intervention as part of a broader push for structural reform of European air traffic management. The airline has teamed up with other carriers and industry groups to call on the European Commission and national transport ministers to overhaul what it describes as a “broken” system, arguing that consistent minimum staffing levels and performance benchmarks should be enforced across all member states.

Executives have repeatedly suggested that the European Union should consider introducing penalties for national providers that fail to meet agreed staffing or service standards during the peak season, in much the same way that airlines are held financially responsible when their own operational failings cause cancellations and long delays. In their view, this would create stronger incentives for states to ensure their air traffic services are resilient before the summer surge in flight volumes.

Ryanair has also sought to mobilize passengers directly, inviting travelers affected by delays to register complaints and join campaigns pressing ministers and regulators to act. The airline’s home page has for months carried a prominent banner displaying the number of daily flights it says are being delayed by air traffic control issues. It has used the figure to argue that much of the disruption faced by its customers stems from constraints beyond the airline’s own staffing, maintenance or scheduling decisions.

Fears of more rowdy passengers as airport drinking comes under scrutiny

Alongside operational warnings, O’Leary has revived concerns about the rise in disruptive passenger behavior, which airlines and airport police forces say often correlates with long delays and heavy drinking in departure lounges. He predicts that prolonged waits linked to air traffic bottlenecks are likely to fuel more cases of intoxicated and unruly travelers this summer, particularly at leisure focused airports.

Ryanair is again calling for tighter controls on alcohol sales in terminals, suggesting that passengers should be limited to two alcoholic drinks per boarding pass before flying. O’Leary questioned why airport bars in many countries are allowed to serve alcohol from very early in the morning, arguing that the relaxed environment effectively suspends normal liquor licensing norms just when tensions and frustrations can run high.

On board, the airline says it already applies stricter policies, rarely serving more than one or two alcoholic drinks per person and refusing service entirely to customers who appear intoxicated or are already causing disturbances. Its grievance is that airports can profit from serving passengers several more drinks while flights are delayed, only for cabin crew and fellow travelers to bear the brunt of the resulting behavior once boarding begins.

Airlines, regulators and airports share responsibility for passenger experience

The warnings from Ryanair come as the broader aviation industry faces growing scrutiny over how it handles busy travel peaks, with consumers and politicians increasingly impatient after several consecutive summers marked by queues, cancellations and last minute schedule changes. Industry groups note that while air traffic control capacity is a critical piece of the puzzle, it is only one element in a complex system that also relies on well staffed security lanes, ground handling teams, airline operations and border control facilities.

Major airline groups such as IAG, the parent of British Airways, have also acknowledged the challenge. In recent communications with investors, IAG has pointed to air traffic control as a recurring operational risk, citing the impact of last summer’s French strikes on its network and warning that limited capacity in European and UK airspace makes it harder to maintain resilience during industrial action or severe weather events.

Eurocontrol has warned that several key air traffic sectors, including those covering parts of France, Spain, Portugal, Greece and the wider London area, face the risk of “overload” at peak times unless additional staffing and careful planning are put in place. It has encouraged providers and airlines to work closely together on timetabling and flow management to smooth demand patterns and reduce pressure on the most congested corridors.

What summer 2026 could look like for Europe’s travelers

For travelers planning European trips between late May and early September, Ryanair’s latest comments underline the importance of building flexibility into itineraries. O’Leary’s warning suggests that weekend departures through busy hubs that depend heavily on French or Spanish airspace are particularly vulnerable to disruption, as are early morning flights whose punctuality can be compromised by even modest staffing gaps at control centers.

Passengers may find that airlines across the continent, not just ultra low cost carriers, adjust schedules, pad block times or tweak routings to mitigate the potential for extended delays. Some carriers have already begun spreading flights more evenly across the day or slightly trimming frequencies on the most constrained routes to improve reliability. However, with demand for European beach, city break and family travel still strong, meaningful reductions in summer traffic levels appear unlikely.

Ryanair, for its part, is promising that its own crews and aircraft will be fully resourced and prepared, while continuing to blame much of any disruption on the shortcomings of air traffic services. As the build up to the peak season begins, travelers will be watching closely to see whether governments and regulators heed the airline’s calls for action, or whether yet another summer of queues, waiting and frayed tempers is in store across Europe’s airports.