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Ryanair is to cut a fifth of its flights for the next two months after bookings dived on the back of new coronavirus travel restrictions.<\/p>\nRyanair is to cut a fifth of its flights for the next two months after bookings dived on the back of new coronavirus travel restrictions.<\/p>\n
The budget airline said it will reduce its flight capacity by 20 per cent in September and October after forward bookings \u201cnotably weakened\u201d in recent days.<\/p>\n
It reported a drop-off in flight bookings over the past 10 days driven by \u201cuncertainty over recent Covid case rates in some EU countries\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ryanair say they are calling on the Irish Government to include those EU countries, with lower or similar Covid case rates, to Ireland\u2019s Green List.<\/p>\n
When schools reopen in September they are asking the government to allow Germany (16.3), the UK (18.6), Austria (22.4), Portugal (26.0) and Poland (25.7) to be added to the Irish Green List.<\/p>\n
The cuts will reduce the frequency of flights from countries such as Spain, France and Sweden, it said.<\/p>\n
A Ryanair spokesman said: \u201cThese capacity cuts and frequency reductions for the months of September and October are unavoidable given the recent weakness in forward bookings due to Covid restrictions in a number of EU countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny affected passengers in September received email notification today advising them of their options.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimilar communications will be issued to the small number of affected passengers in October later today.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past two weeks, as a number of EU countries have raised travel restrictions, forward bookings, especially for business travel into September and October, have been negatively affected, and it makes sense to reduce frequencies so that we tailor our capacity to demand over the next two months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryanair also said it is reducing flight numbers due to Ireland\u2019s Green List travel guidance, which includes 14-day quarantine for visitors from most other EU countries.<\/p>\n
The spokesman added: \u201cWe again call on the Irish Government to amend its Green List of travel counties to include those EU countries with lower or similar 14-day Covid case rates, most notably Germany whose Covid case rate is 25% lower than Ireland, and which will allow for some resumption of normal business and economic travel in September and October.\u201d<\/p>\n