ROME (Reuters) – British airports will struggle to cope with Christmas traffic due to the impact of COVID-19 and Brexit border controls, Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O’Leary told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

“Certainly (for) Europe’s airports Christmas volumes will be no difficulty. The one exception to that will be the UK airports where you have places like Heathrow and Gatwick struggling with … Brexit border controls and COVID,” he said.

“The UK airports, I think will struggle.”

(Reporting by Conor Humphries; Editing by Edmund Blair)