Ryanair CEO Says Airports Should Profile Muslim Men: Times

(Bloomberg) -- Muslim men should be profiled and face further checks at airports because “that is where the threat is coming from,” Ryanair Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary said in an interview with the Times.

Under such profiling guidelines, passengers who would be flagged as a potential threat for terrorism would “generally be males of a Muslim persuasion,” O’Leary reportedly said, adding that most airport security measures were “completely irrelevant.”

“Who are the bombers? They are going to be single males traveling on their own... You can’t say stuff, because it’s racism, but it will generally be males of a Muslim persuasion. Thirty years ago, it was the Irish. If that is where the threat is coming from, deal with the threat,” the Times reported him as saying.

A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain accused O’Leary of making discriminatory remarks, expressing disappointment that “the CEO of a large airline would so want to discriminate against his customers so brazenly.”

Ryanair disputed the Times’ story.

“The headline in today’s paper is simply inaccurate,” the airline said in a statement. “No call for extra checks on any group or persons was made. Michael was only calling for more effective airport security checks which would do away with much of the unnecessary queues at airport security today for all passengers.”

The company said O’Leary “apologizes sincerely for any offense caused.”

--With assistance from Siddharth Philip.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sebastian Tong in San Francisco at stong41@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Angela Moon at hmoon43@bloomberg.net, Helen Robertson, James Amott

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