Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has said it is “absolutely” appropriate to compare other airlines to “rapists”.

Mr O’Leary made the remarks ahead of his airline’s annual general meeting in Dublin on Thursday.

The billionaire businessman claimed rising air travel prices at other airlines would see passengers switch to Ryanair.

He told reporters at the company’s headquarters: “You might find some people will choose not to fly with Ryanair – but you know they’ll be overrun with the people abandoning Aer Lingus, Lufthansa, BA, and others desperate to get to Ryanair’s low fares because they can’t afford to fly with the high-fare rapists around Europe.”

He later repeated the “high-fare rapists” comments.

Asked whether this was appropriate language, Mr O’Leary told reporters: “Absolutely.”

Further pressed on whether the language was trivialising rape, he said: “That’s what I call high-fare airlines like Lufthansa, BA, and others.”