The CEO of Ryanair has been called out for Islamaphobia in light of a recent interview he gave with The Times. The airline chief saying that “bombers” were generally male and Muslim. Reacting to the comments, the Muslim Council of Britain labeled them “discriminatory”. However, Ryanair maintains the position that its CEO’s comments were directed at overall airport security checks and were not intentionally damaging.
CEO accused of inciting targeted discrimination
The character of Ryanair’s CEO has once again been called into question after Michael O’Leary told The Times newspaper that Muslim men should be subjected to airport profiling. In a heated interview with the newspaper, the CEO said that “bombers” would “generally be males of a Muslim persuasion” traveling on their own. By contrast, O’Leary said that Muslim families were unlikely to be a concern for airport security.
In response to O’Leary’s controversial opinion, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that the claims were founded on insubstantial evidence. In a statement, the group said:
“Michael O’Leary should be under no illusion: his comments are racist and discriminatory. He openly advocates discrimination against ‘males of a Muslim persuasion’, which presumably is not based on specific intelligence but solely whether someone ‘looks or acts like a Muslim’. This is the very definition of Islamophobia.”
The MCB also suggested that Ryanair’s comments were not the most sensible taking into account that some of the airline’s customers might be Muslim.
Ryanair tested by a string of controversial claims
Of course, Michael O’Leary’s most recent comments about Muslim men are unacceptable in today’s world. That said, we maybe should not be surprised to hear them.
Michael O’Leary has never been one to use any discretionary filter, which has landed Ryanair in trouble before. He’s also been outspoken in fat-shaming, as well as discriminating against the disabled and now this.
But earlier this month, Ryanair was also found to be misleading its customers. A UK Watchdog found that Ryanair’s environmental advertising was not clear enough. This helped it to aggrandize claims.
Despite the most recent comments on Muslim men, Ryanair has denied any allegations of Islamaphobia. A spokesperson told Simple Flying that the headline in The Times was “inaccurate” and that Michael O’Leary was simply calling for better airport security checks.
However, reading through the interview, it doesn’t seem that O’Leary was only calling for better security checks. But at the same time, the hatred was not only directed towards Muslim men.
Does airport security need to be better?
Whilst it’s evident that O’Leary’s comments were Islamaphobic, the CEO also had something to say about airport security in general.
In the interview, Michael O’Leary said that the current airport security system was merely a ruse to show that politicians were being proactive about security threats. In fact, whilst airport security is somewhat effective at the moment, there is a lot more than can be done.
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A recent study was conducted on the 100 largest international airports in the world. The report concluded that 97% of those airports had major issues with their security system. These issues included outdated web software, exploitable vulnerabilities, and mobile app privacy issues. Needless to say, airport security does need to get better if this is the case.
However, many airports are not taking a static approach. Improving airport security is on the agenda. As an example, we are already seeing the rise of biometric technologies at airports, a trend that will continue into the future.
It seems that O’Leary’s point about better airport security does have legs. However, his discriminatory approach towards Islam is completely unacceptable and clearly has not had the intended effect.
What do you make of O’Leary’s comments? Do they have any merit? Let us know in the comments!
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