Not the best way to clear the air.
Infamously outspoken Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary embarked on a wild tirade in which he disputed a passenger’s claim that they were sucked out of a window during a recent trip with the airline.
Serbian national Ljubisa Karović, 61, claimed that he was partially sucked out of a Ryanair plane after a window shattered during the July 10 flight from Greece to Germany.
The man’s wife, Svetlana Grković Maksimović, and fellow passengers desperately tried to hang on to the flyer as his head and right shoulder were pulled out of the portal due to sudden cabin depressurization, causing him to repeatedly lose consciousness.
Karović reportedly suffered neck and shoulder injuries during the ordeal, per the Serbian businessman’s lawyer, who accused Ryanair crewmembers of neglecting to come to his aid.
However, during Ryanair’s annual general meeting in Dublin on Thursday, O’Leary denied Karović’s allegations, claiming that the passenger was “certainly sucked towards the window, but he didn’t get out the window,” the Mirror reported.
“He wasn’t partially out the window,” the budget carrier boss declared, responding to reporter inquiries. “No, no, no. Part of his face didn’t get out the window.”
“We will be certainly at the end of the process disputing that he or any part of his anatomy will bend out the window,” concluded O’Leary, adding that the flyer was “belted into his seat.”
However, the airline boss insisted he was not trying to “downplay” the man’s suffering, noting that they’d be awaiting the outcome of a report by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the US, which is currently investigating the incident.
While O’Leary admitted that the traveler was entitled to “some compensation” he felt there were no grounds for forking over the “millions” demanded by the passenger’s legal team.
This wasn’t the billionaire’s only controversial statement during the presser. O’Leary also analogized other airlines to sex offenders during a rant about competitors hiking up airfare, the Mirror reported.
“You might find some people will choose not to fly with Ryanair — but you know they’ll be overrun with the people abandoning Aer Lingus, Lufthansa, BA, and others desperate to get to Ryanair’s low fares because they can’t afford to fly with the high-fare rapists around Europe,” he said.
When asked if his comments trivialized rape, O’Leary retorted, “That’s what I call high-fare airlines like Lufthansa, BA, and others.
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