Ryanair group CEO Michael O’Leary has said the airline is ready to “charge back into Ukraine” as soon as European authorities allow.

The outspoken airline executive said his aim is to open three or four “large bases” in Ukraine “as soon as it is safe” and to “create the biggest airline” in the country to help with post-war recovery.

“What we're working on at the moment is how do we charge back into Ukraine,” he told the audience at the Bloomberg New Economy conference at the Powerscourt Hotel in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow.

“We will create the biggest airline the week after they tell us it's safe to go back in there... Initially we were planning to open up thirty routes from four Ukrainian airports back into European Union. And then we want to I think in the first within six to 12 months open up three or four large bases.”

Ryanair is already in touch with Ukrainian and European authorities about expanding into Ukraine once the war is over there, he said.

Mr O’Leary said it would take Ryanair “about two weeks” to fit out new aircraft to fly routes in and out of the country.

He said the airline had already hired 60 private contractors to work in the country and was training them, mostly at Ryanair’s bases in Poland, but that the recognition of pilot’s licences between Ukraine and the EU was an issue.

He added Ryanair was getting ready to fly back into Kiev, Lviv and Odesa as soon as possible, but that Kherson would take longer because it had been “destroyed”.