Two of Britain's business titans have clashed over how much alcohol people should be allowed to consume before flying.
Aeroplane passengers should be restricted to two drinks at airports, Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary has said.
However, his comments have be criticised by Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin, who says coffee sales match beer sales at his pubs boozers around the UK.
Ryanair said on Tuesday that instances of in-flight violence had surged this summer with attacks now occurring on a weekly basis, some of them involving assaults on cabin crew and others physical confrontations between passengers.
Mr O’Leary blamed a combination of alcohol and “powder and tablets” for the surge in incidents, which he said were most pronounced on flights to party destinations such as Ibiza and some Greek islands.
"We don't want to begrudge people having a drink," he told the Daily Telegraph.
"But we don't allow people to drink-drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000ft."
However, Wetherspoons’ airport pubs derived only 33% of sales from alcohol, Sir Tim said. A total 25% of sales came from soft drinks, tea and coffee, with the remainder from food purchases.
Sir Tim Martin said Wetherspoons’ airport pubs no longer served shots such as Jägerbombs, adding that alcoholic drinks made up just a third of sales at these sites over the past four weeks.
He said: “We’ve had no complaints about our pubs from the airport authorities or airlines that I’m aware of in recent years.
“Years ago we stopped selling ‘shooters’ at airports, as well as ‘double-up’ offers. Ryanair in contrast offers a discount on Irish whiskey if a double is ordered.”