Views from the top: three aviation leaders assess the state of travel after three weeks of the unfolding tragedy in Iran
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2026
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Michael O'Leary, chief executive of Ryanair and Kenton Jarvis, CEO of easyJet tell me how the crisis has affected their airlines, while Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (Iata), assuages concerns about flying.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. |
| 0:08.9 | It's Monday the 23rd of March, which means three weeks since I started reporting on this podcast about the unfolding tragedy in Iran and the implications for travellers. |
| 0:25.7 | Today I've brought together three of the top people in aviation who have given me |
| 0:32.3 | their views on the situation and what it will mean for your travel. |
| 0:42.3 | First of all, and very optimistic, as always, Michael O'Leary. |
| 0:47.8 | He is the chief executive of Ryanair, Europe's biggest budget airline. |
| 0:52.7 | I think a lot of people who are planning to go long haul or across to the Gulf over Easter, |
| 0:55.1 | the Easter school holidays are now changing their plans, or booking Ryanair to go to Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. But we hope to see an early |
| 1:00.2 | conclusion to the war in Iran and the things the world will get back to normal as quickly as possible. |
| 1:05.1 | How, though, does this rank in terms of the crises you've seen at your 32 years at Ryanair? |
| 1:11.1 | I think it's one of the minor ones at the moment. |
| 1:14.0 | It's not as important as 9-11 or the Gulf War, |
| 1:17.4 | but that depends on how long it continues. |
| 1:19.4 | I mean, most the markets think it will last another four or five weeks. |
| 1:22.8 | If that's correct, then I think everything will return to Norman pretty quickly. |
| 1:26.5 | But certainly, in the short term for Easter, |
| 1:29.0 | it has certainly seen a rise in bookings of people staying in Europe. |
| 1:32.5 | What about running out of fuel, though? |
| 1:34.3 | That's what some people have been saying could happen. |
| 1:36.4 | Again, I think everybody is pretty, jet fuel is pretty secure for the next three or four months. |
| 1:41.4 | As long as the war ends reasonably quickly April, May time, we don't think there's any risk to disruption to jet fuel. Have you noticed much of a fall off in bookings over the past three weeks? No, if anything, we've seen a rise in bookings. I mean, we're coming into the Easter school holidays, and I think a lot of people who were planning to go to either to the Gulf or hub across |
| 2:01.8 | the Gulf have chased their plans and going on family holidays now in Europe so in the short term |
... |
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