Ryanair boss blames 'deficient' licensing for Thomas Cook chaos

LONDON, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary said Britain's Civil Aviation Authority was partly to blame for the chaos surrounding Thomas Cook's bankruptcy and should make tougher licensing demands to prevent airline collapses stranding passengers.

Travel company Thomas Cook collapsed last week. While the CAA had done well to repatriate hundreds of thousands of stranded passengers, the Ryanair group CEO said, it should do more to prevent airline failures in the first place.

"How you can license Thomas Cook in April as fit to fly for another 12 months and then it goes bust in September. (It) is something the CAA needs to address," O'Leary said at a Reuters Newsmaker event.

"The CAA should be much more aggressive in requiring the shareholders of those companies to put up much more cash to get through the year, rather than allowing them to continually fail." (Reporting by Conor Humphries, Tim Hepher and Laurence Frost, writing by Alistair Smout; editing by Jason Neely)