Brexit update: Evidence for Walsh and O'Leary views — April 2018

Have you heard the one about the two Irishmen, each a Chief Executive of a major airline, but both apparently with very different views on the likely impact of Brexit on aviation? Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, predicts that we are all doomed. “I think Brexit is going to be one of the great economic suicide notes in history. I think it is a shambles — the UK will suffer hugely, Europe will suffer … and it will be bad for our industry.”

On the other hand, Willie Walsh, Chief Executive of IAG (which he is quick to point out, in the context of Brexit, is a European holding company and not actually an airline), takes a far more sanguine approach. “I’m a firm believer that this will get resolved,” he told the A4E Aviation Summit in March.