Airport bars should be banned from serving alcohol in the early hours of the morning, according to the chief executive of Ryanair.

Michael O'Leary, who has led Ryanair as CEO for over 30 years, claims his airline is being compelled to divert flights on an almost daily basis due to drunk and aggressive passengers. He says these travellers frequently spend hours drinking in airport bars before boarding their flights.

Airport pubs are not currently subject to the same licensing restrictions as bars outside these venues. Mr O'Leary, 65, believes reforming these rules would benefit his airline and others by helping to stamp out unruly behaviour in the skies.

The businessman said: "I fail to understand why anybody in airport bars is serving people at five or six o'clock in the morning. Who needs to be drinking beer at that time? There should be no alcohol served at airports outside [those] licensing hours."

A man was recently jailed after becoming abusive and causing widespread alarm aboard a Ryanair flight travelling from Poland to Bristol. Stephen Blofield's case is just one of several recent incidents involving passengers turning aggressive following alcohol consumption.

According to The Times, Mr O'Leary has been pushing for a two-drink per-person limit "for many years" and has accused airports of "profiteering" off the troublesome travel ritual and "exporting the problem to the airlines".

However, father-of-four Mr O'Leary, from Kanturk, County Cork, insisted that Ryanair is "reasonably responsible" when it comes to serving alcohol, rarely offering a passenger more than two drinks on board. He maintained, however, that drug use has crept into the equation alongside alcohol consumption, compounding the problem as passengers subsequently "want to fight".

Footage recently emerged of a "shocking and frightening" brawl which erupted aboard a Jet2 flight from Antalya, Turkey to Manchester. The alarming incident, during which two individuals were seen grabbing at a phone and clawing at another passenger's face, resulted in airline bans for two of those involved.

Mr O'Leary says he adopts an equally firm stance within his own company, reminding passengers that it is a criminal offence to be drunk on an aircraft, carrying a penalty of up to two years in prison and a substantial fine.

Threatening and abusive passengers face further prosecution, in addition to significant compensation costs and legal proceedings in whichever country the aircraft is diverted to land.

Flights from Britain to Ibiza, Alicante and Tenerife are reported to have proved particularly troublesome. Last year, a former soldier who sexually assaulted four Jet2 cabin crew members during a flight to Tenerife was sent to prison.

Joseph McCabe groped and slapped the buttocks of two flight attendants before grabbing a third around the waist and attempting to embrace a fourth. The father-of-two, from Glasgow, was handed a 46 week sentence and placed on the sex offenders register for his drunken conduct on the plane.