{"id":604710,"date":"2026-09-18T22:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T22:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/604710\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T22:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T22:16:10","slug":"ryanair-boss-apologises-for-calling-competitors-rapists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/604710\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryanair boss apologises for calling competitors \u2018rapists\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFP<\/p>\n

18 Sep, 2026 07:09 PM2 mins to read<\/p>\n

Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.Subscribe now<\/p>\n

\u200c<\/p>\n

Save<\/a>Share this articleCopy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter\/XLinkedInReddit<\/p>\n

Irish budget airline Ryanair\u2019s chief has apologised to sexual violence survivors for comparing competing airlines to \u201crapists\u201d in comments that he acknowledged caused \u201cconsiderable upset and offence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Michael O\u2019Leary \u201csincerely and unreservedly\u201d apologised in an online video for last week describing Ryanair\u2019s competitors as rapists for their high fares.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have come to realise, however, that the word I used so carelessly has caused considerable upset and offence to a wide number of people, especially victims and survivors,\u201d O\u2019Leary said.<\/p>\n

He had previously fuelled the controversy by refusing to apologise and saying his comparison was \u201cabsolutely\u201d appropriate.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I certainly did not trivialise the heinous crime of rape, I will certainly not be issuing any apology,\u201d he said last week in response to criticism from the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFP 18 Sep, 2026 07:09 PM2 mins to read Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[181942,4376,17622,38860,43507,4282,11357,138,5842,8604,3937,5782,298074,8813,67552,160406,2082,18792,111,139,69,62511,5037,19336,298073,17703,88372,1361,8496,13118],"class_list":["post-604710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-acknowledged","tag-airline","tag-airlines","tag-apologised","tag-apologises","tag-boss","tag-budget","tag-business","tag-calling","tag-caused","tag-chief","tag-comments","tag-comparing","tag-competing","tag-competitors","tag-considerable","tag-for","tag-irish","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-offence","tag-rapists","tag-ryanair","tag-ryanairs","tag-sexual","tag-survivors","tag-that","tag-upset","tag-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}