Surprise! Okay, no surprise: Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary is back to his cheeky ways, claiming he wants to do away with laws requiring passengers to wear seatbelts on planes because they’re useless. And if people don’t have to be sitting, he could use all that wasted space in the cabin to sell standing room only spots in the cabin for as low as £1 to European destinations.

The Telegraph says O’Leary finds the current rules “plonkers” because airplanes are basically  “just a b—– bus with wings.” Insert your own expletive, I suppose?

O’Leary insists that it would be totally safe because he’s not saying the planes are going to go through areas of massive turbulence, so no one will get tossed around.

A few gems from a man known as, ah, quite frugal: “If there ever was a crash on an aircraft, God forbid, a seatbelt won’t save you.”
“Seatbelts don’t matter.”  “You don’t need a seatbelt on the London Underground. You don’t need a seatbelt on trains which are travelling at 120mph and if they crash you’re all dead…”

What about landing? O’Leary says passengers who are standing could hang on to handles installed for that very purpose and be “fine” as airplanes routinely fly and land without incident every day.

Despite the pesky authorities who “are all a bunch of plonkers,” O’Leary thinks his plan would totally work — after all, everyone loves a discount.

“If you say to passengers it’s £25 for the seat and £1 for the standing cabin, I guarantee we will sell the standing cabin first,” he said. “No question.”

Listening to the customer is one thing — but letting them put themselves at risk? That’s quite another, and definitely an issue for those “plonkers” to deal with.

Seatbelts on planes are pointless, says Ryanair boss [The Telegraph]

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