Ryanair, Europe’s largest low fares airline has announced plans to return to 40% of normal flight schedules from Wed 1 July 2020, subject to Government restrictions on intra-EU flights being lifted, and effective public health measures being put in place at airports.
Since the Covid-19 flight restrictions in mid-March, Ryanair has been operating a skeleton daily schedule of 30 flights between Ireland, the UK and Europe. From July, Ryanair will restart flying from most of its 80 bases across Europe, operating a daily flight schedule of almost 1,000 flights, restoring 90% of its pre-Covid-19 route network. This include the reinstatement of 27 routes to/from Manchester.
Ryanair has released a return to flying video on its website, encouraging passengers to observe effective health measures to limit the Covid-19 virus. These include fewer checked bags, check in online, downloading boarding pass to the passenger smart phone, as well as undergoing temperature checks at airport entry and wearing face masks/coverings at all times in the terminal and on board aircraft.
Ryanair’s CEO Eddie Wilson, said: “It is important for our customers and our people that we return to some normal schedules from 1 July onwards. Governments around Europe have implemented a four month lockdown to limit the spread of the Covid-19 virus. After four months, it is time to get Europe flying again so we can reunite friends and families, allow people to return to work, and restart Europe’s tourism industry, which provides so many millions of jobs.
“Ryanair will work closely with public health authorities to ensure that these flights comply, where possible, with effective measures to limit the spread of Covid-19. As already shown in Asia, temperature checks and face masks/coverings are the most effective way to achieve this on short haul (1 hour) within Europe’s single market.
“Now that Europe’s States are allowing some gradual return to normal life, we expect this will evolve over the coming weeks and months. With more than six weeks to go to 1st July, Ryanair believes this is the most practical date to resume normal flight schedules, so that we can allow friends and families to reunite, commuters to go back to work, and allow those tourism based economies such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, France and others, to recover what is left of this year’s tourism season.
“We will continue to work closely with public health agencies to encourage our people and passengers to adopt practical and effective steps to limit the spread of Covid-19 virus, in the best interest of our passengers, our people and our communities”.