Ryanair has dismissed as without foundation a UK report which claimed that low-cost airlines, under pressure to meet schedules, were endangering passengers by ignoring air traffic controllers.
The UK report is based on a complaint made on a confidential basis by an air traffic controller in Britain about low-cost airlines in general.
The complaint was made to an independent body called CHIRP (Confidential Human Factors Incident Reporting Programme) which handles incident reports from aviation workers. It is funded by the aviation industry.
Details of the air traffic controller's complaint have now been published by CHIRP, but it does not name any particular low-cost airline. The report said that there was a "growing tendency observed primarily with some of the low-cost airline operators" of flight crew "reacting inappropriately" to air traffic control instructions.
"These inappropriate reactions usually take the form of overly-aggressive responses to what are perceived by flight crew as either unnecessary or unhelpful air traffic control instructions or clearances that are believed to inhibit the planned operation of the flight," it said.
The complainant added: "I would not like to give the impression that anarchy has broken out or that this problem is occurring more often than not; at the present time, it remains the exception rather than the rule. However, it is occurring with increasing frequency and, in my judgement, is due in part to the aggressively commercial ethos that exists within some airline companies and which probably translates into extreme pressure on the flight deck to achieve programmed sector flight times."
Ireland's largest low-cost airline, Ryanair, said yesterday that the report had no basis in fact. A spokesman, Mr Enda O'Toole, commented: "There is no reference to Ryanair or any other low-fares airline in this report. It is based on one report from one air traffic controller. It has no basis in fact whatsoever and, as the conclusion notes, even the claimed problems are infrequent."
Mr Tadhg Kearney, chairperson of the Irish Air Transport Users' Committee, said that the report should be investigated by the Civil Aviation Authority in the UK. Suggestions that air traffic controllers' instructions were met with aggression from pilots was completely unacceptable. "One is always alarmed at any reports of the compromising of air safety," he said.
A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority in Britain said that it could not act on the report because it did not know the airline involved or where the incidents were alleged to have occurred. "If we did, and if it was a UK airline, we would deal with it immediately and regard it as totally unacceptable," he said.
The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) said that there had been no reports of similar practices here. Ms Lilian Cassin, the IIA's corporate communications officer, said that the authority had not been officially notified of the CHIRP report, but it would be "following it up".
Ms Cassin said that she had worked for seven years as an air traffic controller. In her experience, pilots always followed the instructions of air traffic controllers. "Budget airlines offer a different service to other airlines with no ice in drinks or no complementary newspapers, but in my experience they do not compromise on safety," she added.
Apart from Ryanair, two other low-cost airlines operate in Ireland. These are EasyJet and Go, which provide flights from Belfast. A spokesman for EasyJet said he was confident that the report had nothing to do with them. A spokesman for Go said that safety was not negotiable. "We would immediately investigate why any pilot would disregard air traffic control instructions," he added.