What the Ryanair and Wetherspoons bust-up tells us about boozy Britain

I’d quite like to see a scrap between Tim Martin, boss of Wetherspoons, and Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary – in which they both lose, writes Sean O’Grady

Martin has criticised O’Leary for suggesting a two-drink limit on flights (Getty/PA)

A scrap between Tim Martin – boss of Wetherspoons – and Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary is one of those where I’d quite like it if both could lose.

Between them, they’ve managed to bring mixed benefits to their chosen sectors; creating cheap boozers in one case; and cheap air travel in the other.

But what of those people who quite like to combine such pleasures? Long since deprived of having a smoke in an airport pub or on a plane (and yes, both these practices were once widespread and perfectly unremarkable), are they now to be told they can no longer get sloshed?

O’Leary says so, because it’s his cabin crew and his schedules (and profits) that have to deal with drunken revellers on his aircraft; their natural exuberance boosted by some pre-flight hospitality.

As the man with the cheap seats puts it: “We don’t want to begrudge people having a drink. But we don’t allow people to drink-drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000ft.”

O’Leary explains that “in the old days, people who drank too much would eventually fall over or fall asleep. But now those passengers are also on tablets and powder. It’s the mix. You get much more aggressive behaviour that becomes very difficult to manage.”

Well, I’ve never used “tablets and powder”, and prefer a nice glass of port to send me off to the land of nod on a longhaul flight, but I can appreciate O’Leary’s problem. He can’t do much about the drugs, but he can limit consumption of alcohol onboard (which is done, presumably when they pass out or get too lairy).

He is also calling for rationing at the pubs and bars that have proliferated in our airports; where you can easily catch the jarring sight of someone enjoying a pint of Carlsberg and some chips for breakfast.

But on the other side of the ring, speaking up for the pre-loading community, Martin pleads that he scrapped two-for-one alcohol deals and the unfortunately-named “shooters” from his airport menus some years ago. But without thirsty holidaymakers and overwrought businesspeople making use of his facilities, well, the pro-Brexit entrepreneur wouldn’t have a business, would he?

As I say, it’s impossible to have that much sympathy for these contemporary business and social icons, but the happy conclusion is that the arguments are fairly void. There won’t be anyone to police a drinks limit per customer at airports, because it’s impractical.

If you can only have two drinks at the nearest Spoons, then that’s fine – because you can just set off on a crawl of the many other outlets that will sell you another few jars before you make your weary, unsteady way to the gate (which is always further away than you think).

And if you really want to make sure that the holiday of a lifetime is conducted through a boozy haze, you can stock up with as many ultra-cheap wines, beers and spirits from our ever-friendly supermarkets and cheekily imbibe at home first.

To try and prevent the British from getting drunk and making fools of themselves in southern Europe is an affront to the accepted mores of our modern civilisation – and one that owes so much to the vision of Martin and O’Leary.

I can only suggest that what they need is a few drinks inside them and a fight on the plane on their way to a lovely sunny break. That would be the appropriate way for them to settle their differences.