Finance

O’Leary brands French finance minister ‘stupid’ in Boeing safety row

The boss of Ryanair has compared France’s finance minister to Donald Trump after he gave a “silly and ill-advised” criticism of plane maker Boeing.

Michael O’Leary branded Bruno Le Maire a “stupid politician” for saying he hesitates to travel on Boeing aircraft because he values his life.

Mr Le Maire drew laughter and applause from a conference audience this week when he said he preferred “the situation of Airbus to Boeing’s” following the midair blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight earlier this year.

He told the Europe 2024 conference in Berlin: “I now prefer flying in Airbus over Boeing — my family too, they care about me.”

Mr O’Leary told Politico that Mr Le Maire’s words were “silly and ill-judged” but “we live in a world where we encourage free speech and Donald Trump is talking rubbish. So is Bruno Le Maire”.

He said that his message to “some stupid politician going, ‘My family don’t feel safe on a 737’ [was] ‘Well then, try flying on an Airbus with a problem with the engine that hasn’t been repaired.’”

Last year one of Ryanair’s biggest low-cost rivals, Wizz Air, said it expected 45 of its 180-strong Airbus A320 fleet would be grounded for months because of engine problems.

The French government is the biggest single shareholder in Airbus, the arch rival of Boeing.

The US plane manufacturer has been in crisis since a refrigerator-sized hole opened up in a plane mid-flight in January. The blowout was linked to loose bolts and led the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ground all Boeing 737 Max 9 planes with a door plug.


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