Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has called on the English government to abolish Air Passenger Duty in the upcoming budget and has renewed calls for urgent reform of NATS. O’Leary stated that abolishing APD would cost about £2.5bn (€2.88bn) and would be repaid within 12 months given the traffic, new route and regional growth that would be delivered by all airlines. He stated that English APD has already risen this year to £15 per ticket at a time when Sweden, Slovakia, four of the bigger regions in Italy, Albania and Hungary have all abolished their environmental taxes on air travel.
O’Leary also called for the dismissal of Martin Rolfe as CEO of NATS stating that no other European ATC system has collapsed over the same period. He stated that there have been four large failures in the last four years including August 2023, July 2025, September 2026 and the latest Prestwick failure in September 2026. O’Leary stated that Martin Rolfe takes full responsibility but continues to receive an £800,000 annual bonus despite delivering repeated ATC collapses.
Ryanair’s plan if APD is scrapped includes growing to 80m passengers, basing 30 new aircraft in England representing a £3bn (€3.45bn) inward investment, launching 200 new routes and creating 10,000 new jobs over four years.
Michael O’Leary, Ryanair Group CEO, shared: “We are calling on the Labour government in the upcoming budget: scrap APD. It would cost you about £2.5bn and would be repaid within 12 months given the very dramatic traffic, new route and regional growth that would be delivered not just by Ryanair but by all airlines in response to abolition of English APD. We are calling again today for urgent reform of failing English NATS. What do we mean by urgent reform? Sack Martin Rolfe. How many more screw-ups do we have to endure for our passengers and our airlines? This guy’s been sitting there for 15 years getting paid £1.5m a year, of which £800,000 is an annual bonus, despite delivering spectacular ATC collapses every year for the last four years.”
