Ryanair (FR, Dublin International) has confirmed it will restrict the voting rights of all non-EU shareholders in the event of a hard Brexit. The Irish budget carrier said in a 4Q17 earnings disclosure that it remains "concerned at the likely impact of a hard Brexit" and, in such an event, it anticipates that its UK-based shareholders will then be treated as non-EU thus potentially affecting Ryanair’s licencing and flight rights.

"Accordingly, in line with our Articles, we intend to restrict the voting rights of all non-EU shareholders in the event of a hard Brexit, so that we can ensure that Ryanair is majority owned and controlled by EU shareholders at all times to comply with our licences," it said. "This would result in non-EU shareholders not being able to vote on shareholder resolutions."

Ryanair's UK unit - Ryanair UK (RK, London Stansted) - is expected to secure its UK Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) before the end of this year. This will then protect the carrier's domestic UK operations beyond Brexit, set for March 2019.

During an earnings call, CEO Michael O'Leary said that Ryanair Holdings would eventually evolve into an entity akin to the IAG International Airlines Group wherein its various units are contained within a singular group. The holding firm currently counts the Irish AOC, Ryanair, an impending UK AOC, and a Polish AOC, Ryanair Sun. The LCC also controls a 24.9% stake in Austria's LaudaMotion but is looking to boost that figure to 75% in the short term.

On rival Norwegian's ongoing courtship by IAG International Airlines Group, O'Leary said Ryanair would be very interested in snapping up whatever divestments are made should the Scandinavian carrier be sold.

“If IAG or Lufthansa Group were to acquire Norwegian, for example, I think it’s inevitable that there would be significant competition divestments coming out of that, and we would certainly want to play a role in any kind of competition divestments that will arise out of a restructuring or a takeover by an either Alitalia (AZA, Rome Fiumicino) or a Norwegian or any of the other loss-making airlines at the moment. And at group structure, again, modelled on the IAG structure would enable us to build some scale to participate in those kind of processes,” he said.