Michael O'Leary, Favours a "Practical" Approach to Immigration

In order to allow more workers from Europe to fill positions, Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary has urged the UK government to adopt a more "practical, common sense" approach to post-Brexit policy.

In order to fill positions that he cannot fill with British workers, Mr. O'Leary claimed he could hire people from continental Europe, but he is unable to obtain visas for them. He claimed that making these visas more accessible would lessen the impact on air travel. According to the government, it wants businesses to hire British workers.

Mr O'Leary said: "I can hire thousands of people in Portugal, in Italy, France, Germany at exactly the same wages that I'm paying in the UK and I just can't hire them in the UK at the moment and we have this bizarre situation at the moment that in the UK I can get visas to bring Moroccans to come in and work as cabin crew. But I can't get visas for Portuguese or Italians or Slovakian youngsters. We just need a bit of more common sense and a practical approach to how we implement Brexit."

He claimed that allowing for such visas would lessen the chaos currently experienced at some airports and relieve skill shortages in other regions.

"There are not enough people in the UK willing to do these jobs… particularly during peak periods of the summer and airports in particular. Airport handling staff and airport security staff are really struggling to recruit, particularly in the southeast, at airports like Gatwick, Heathrow and Manchester."