Ryanair threatens to suspend domestic Italian flights

A heated debate between Ryanair and the Italian aviation authority, ENAC, has resulted in the budget airline saying that it will suspend all internal flight in the country from the 23rd January. The move follows new ruling by ENAC that allows passengers that have checked in online to use what Ryanair consider to be sub standard ID to get on to their flights. Ryanair have said they are being forced to let people board planes that have nothing more that a fishing license to prove who they are. To the carrier, this is a serious safety issue that could lead to potentially devastating consequences to innocent people that fly with them in Italy.

The row has erupted again after Christmas, when a Nigerian man attempted to blow up a Delta Airways jet as it came into land at Detroit Airport in the US. This is a man who managed to get on a flight with his real ID and almost blow it from the sky over downtown Detroit on Christmas Day. Ryanair are asking it passengers to petition the ENAC in letters asking for the new directive to be overturned amid fears for safety.

The directives that were announced in November were done without consultation of airlines according the Ryanair chief executive, Michael O’Leary. An appeal at a court in Lazio was turned down, but the world’s largest budget carrier said that they will take it to Italy’s highest court, the Consiglio dello Stato, to try and resolve the safety issue with allowing lesser forms of ID for air travel in Italy.