O'Leary Slams British Government For Travel Chaos

Calls Delays "A Bad Dream At Disneyland"

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary says he will sue the British government if airport chaos continues at his main London base.

His comments came as it emerged that an Algerian couple in their 40s who had been living in Dublin were arrested at the weekend as part of a Gardai investigation into alleged terror plots.

The couple were detained after documents were uncovered in their house explaining how to build and plant bombs in cities.

The pair are being quizzed by officers from Interpol.

However the airline entrepreneur said he was furious after being forced to cancel another eight flights from Stanstead Airport, including one bound for Dublin last week.

This brings the total number of flights he has grounded in the wake of the thwarted terror alert to 270.

Along with the Dublin-born boss of British Airways, Willie Walsh, he blamed the

British Airport Authority for causing chaos during a turbulent day at Stanstead yesterday.

Mr Walsh said delays at Heathrow were like "a bad dream at Disneyland".

Irish airports were also hit by delays as a result of the continuing chaos in London.

Their comments came after it emerged that in addition to delays and cancelled flights, thousands of passengers had suffered further distress after their luggage was lost.

More than 10,000 bags were separated from passengers in the immediate confusion after the alert.

British Airways was last night trying to reunite 5,000 pieces of luggage with their owners.

Mr O'Leary and Mr Walsh said a shortage of security staff had delayed passengers and "hampered" their ability to run a full schedule of flights yesterday.

"We're seriously considering taking legal action against the government to force them to get the airports back to normal," said Mr O'Leary.

He also hit out at new "nonsensical" hand-baggage regulations - which limited passengers to one small piece of cabin luggage - and called for the army to be brought in to support hard-pressed staff.

BAA had to axe 41 flights at Heathrow as well as 11 domestic services at Stansted. Aer Lingus has, meanwhile, returned to a full schedule of flights.

The irate airlines made their cutting statements as massive queues wound around Stanstead's terminal building in London yesterday.

Mr O'Leary said the authority had "paralysed" Ryanair at its main London base because of its tardy security arrangements.

Mr Walsh also said BAA had been unable to "provide a robust security search process.

The lengthy queues in the airport security search area mean that passengers are unable to get to the departure gate in time for their flight," he said.

BAA rejected the airlines' accusations and said its staff were "working extremely hard" to deal with the new restrictions.

The flight cancellations and delays continued yesterday despite the scaling back of security measures at British airports as a result of the national security threat being reclassified as 'severe' rather than 'critical'.

Some passengers who arrived back in Dublin Airport yesterday said they had suffered long delays at Stanstead.

Friends Oliver Harding and Jake Ramsden from London got around the problem of hand luggage at Manchester airport by bringing their belongings through in their pockets. Longford mum Helen O'Shea, who travelled with British Midlands from Heathrow with her three children, said her liquid lipstick had to be removed from her handbag - but found "security was no worse than normal. Restrictions seemed to be much stiffer on British Airways flights and passengers had to go through white, cordoned off, sections.