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RYANAIR HAS SAID it will reduce its capacity from 60% down to 40% for the winter months, which will include closing its Cork and Shannon bases.
Group CEO Michael O’Leary said that while he “deeply regretted” these cuts, they have been “forced upon us by government mismanagement of EU air travel”.
Restrictions on flights introduced by governments across Europe will mean curtailments to air travel to and from much of central Europe, the UK, Ireland, Austria, Belgium and Portugal, the airline said.
As well as Cork and Shannon, it’s also closing its Toulouse base and cut aircraft in bases in Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Vienna.
The airline said it still expects to fill 70% of seats on its planes, despite the curtailments, and expects full year traffic to fall to approximately 38 million people.
Ryanair has been consistently critical of the Irish government for its handling of air travel during the Covid-19 crisis.
The so-called Green List – countries where people can travel to and from without facing requirements to restrict movements when they return to Ireland – now has no countries on it.
The EU agreed a new traffic light system for air travel earlier this week and Ireland has indicated its willingness to participate in the system.
Today’s news will come as a blow to Cork and Shannon, following on from a warning from Ryanair last month that such a situation was being considered.
O’Leary said: “Our focus continues to be on maintaining as large a schedule as we can sensibly operate to keep our aircraft, our pilots and our cabin crew current and employed while minimising job losses.
It is inevitable, given the scale of these cutbacks, that we will be implementing more unpaid leave, and job sharing this winter in those bases where we have agreed reduced working time and pay, but this is a better short term outcome than mass job losses.
The Ryanair group CEO also urged EU governments to adopt the traffic light system as soon as possible.
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Disaster for both Airports.
@Barry: Build more airports?? I don’t think that’s an issue at all. Awful for the staff effected from Ryanair and the airports.
@Ger Buckley: Agreed.
With up to 1000 positive tests daily and alleged deaths between 0-5 one wonders when folk will put this in context.
The Govt now conveniently ignores the WHO advice not to use lockdowns.
There is doubt now that the continued hysteria is causing more death, sickness and misery than Covid could ever cause
The data is there for all to see but unjustified fear prevents smart people from thinking clearly
@Seamus Hughes: what about the data that says those that recover appear to be developing long term health issues? Even worse, it indicates that a mild covid infection causes worse long-term effects than those caused by a severe infection, maybe something to do with medical intervention?
The point is, deaths are not the only metric, people keep focusing on ‘low deaths, so why is our quality of life being negatively impacted now’ but are ignoring longer term quality of life issues
@Seamus Hughes:
One should leave the decisions to the experts and not people who learn from Youtube.
@D Mems: About 13000 active cases in entire country or 1/6 of Croker capacity. Seriously need to cop on at this stage invest where needed and live with it
@D Mems: they also ignore advice on masks and asymptomatic transmission of the disease but who cares it’s all good fun.
Hundreds of more jobs lost , how awful for these people and their families especially this time of year with Christmas only just over 2 months away, yet some luna tics will continue to point the finger at travel and try and blame it for the rising cases, absolute utter lies and ru bbish.
@SB: well how did it arrive in ireland then the viras just swam across the ocean did it
@Smokeycarroll: If you are naive enough to think that as an Island nation we can sustain an Economy and employment, then it’s a sad reflection on the education you received in this state.
@Paul Potts: where did he say any of that???
@Stiofán Ó Cearnaigh: thank you
@Paul Potts: sad c##t
@Smokeycarroll: your attempts at sarcasm has failed, clearly Covid-19 was brought into every single country in the world by travel as it originated from China, but let’s not get pedantic here, I’m asking you to produce evidence that international travel is responsible for the spike in cases in Ireland, if you can produce this I’ll retract everything I said and issue an apology, if you can’t I suggest you zip it.
@SB:
@SB: You detected sarcasm though, that’s a success in my books :D
And all this happens because the hospitals are not fit for purpose after years and years of under funding.
They cant keep country open fue to their bad planning.
@billy bound: yep, government has had YEARS to organise hospitals but all they do is throw money at a broken workflow.
@billy bound: I don’t think the problem is with funding. We’ve spent over 160 billion € on Health in the last 10 years but the same old problems exists. Lack of ANY reform, too many management layers and zero accountability. We can’t retain staff due to working conditions and it’s difficult to onboard new people for same reasons. The unions are a major part of the problem.
@Brian Lilly: Last years budget was 16.4 billion, we cannot have spent 160 billion , unless you include the private spending.
@billy bound: Even if throwing more money at the HSE could improve things, and clearly it does not, it’s better not to get sick in the first place.
@ChronicAnxiety: incorrect, our budget was 66.5 billion last year.
At the end of the day, this traffic light system was put in place since July in the EU and Eamonn Ryan and all his committees and consultants knew this. They had been warned for months that this would be the outcome if they didn’t act and get prepared for the implementation of the EU ratified system…. Well suprise suprise they dithered and stalled and this is the outcome. As an aviation worker in Cork I am disgusted. Let down once again by the government. 6 of the 8 departures today from Cork are Ryanair… That will close the airport at this rate. What a shambles this has been. Incredibly frustrating and disappointing.
@CMT: Government have shown themselves up once again. The light system is a farce. Someone could not travel to Switzerland or Austria but could to Liechtenstein, reality it is not possible to get to Liechtenstein without entering one of these countries. Same thing when Monaco was on the list without France.
Fingers crossed this resolves itself in the not so distant future and you and your family can return to normality.
@Wreck Tangle: cheers
@CMT: eamonn Ryan is probably smugg on this ,all those planes won’t be polluting his planet, ,they can all cycle to their holidays ha
@Wreck Tangle: You have no imagination. You could easily have parachuted into Liechtenstein and sailed to Monaco on your private yacht. Greenland was a wonderful holiday destination widely available this year also.
Just wait for the local politicians to cry “wolf” now even though this decision has been inevitable for months due to the totally inadequate stance on travel taken by our government. The green list was a joke!
Well done MOL. MeeHole and Leo have a lot to be held accountable for. The air policy of this country is shambolic and the green list was embarrassing from the start. No logic to it whatsoever. The stats from IATA on the safety of air travel have been ignored by this government. Meehole an Leo, hold your heads in shame.
@Seamus Hughes: everyone should click that link and then read the comments…… Absolute clowns and dangerous ones at that
@Seamus Hughes: have you actually watched and understood what the WHO rep says in this video? He said we don’t advise using lockdown as a PRIMARY means of controlling the virus. WHO has no issue with using lockdown to buy time, relieve pressure, regroup etc. That’s exactly what we’re doing. Primary means of control here is hygiene, distancing, mask wearing. Lockdown is being used to take pressure off the health system and let the current spoke in cases dissipate. If you’re going to link something at least part attention to what it says
Travel should be opened up again to other EU countries. The time where travel restrictions would have actually worked has come and gone. Most infections now are community based.
It’s always someone else’s fault with O’Leary.
@Fred the Muss…:I don’t have much time for him, but he’s right here
@Fred the Muss…: But it is someone else’s fault in this case.
@Fred the Muss…: BS. Ryanair are sending their fleet elsewhere for now. Not ideal for passengers but correct decision from a privately owned airline.
@Fred the Muss…: true – it’s passenger numbers and not govt policy that have caused this – I bet most of the 38 million were in Q1 before the lockdown kicked in. However like many businesses Ryanair probably won’t get proper assistance because government did not actually close airports. Assisting bars and restaurants is great as they were forced to close but what about all the businesses than depend on them but were allowed to stay open with no business?
Time for the government to stop all the restrictions, and let us get back to our lives
Does the government realized how many non-Irish-origin people live and work here? People who needs to visit their families and friends on a regular basis, not to mention Xmas and other festivities?
Does the government realize how many of them work and bring jobs here, based on the fact they could travel, taking a plane every other week like a bus?
Does the people realise how much this affects Irish economy?
@Proudly Italian:
Well there’s also the Irish who live abroad. I’m one of them, I haven’t been home since last year. I’ve cancelled 2 trips home this year and decided not to book anymore.
Expats don’t bring jobs. We take jobs away from locals. You don’t NEED to visit your family, you want to. My parents are old, I would really like to see them, my biggest fear at the moment is that one of them dies and I don’t get to see them. I could say I need to see them on this basis but that’t not true. You (like me) decided to live in another country, if that doesn’t suit anymore, then we can move home. Moving around on planes because you feel you need to see your family is not good enough. Sometimes you have to accept the consequences of your own actions.
@Wreck Tangle: I partially agree. First of all, of course, it works both ways.
Expats bring jobs as well as takes them… I moved to make more money, I spend the money in Ireland, I make jobs here. Plain and simple.
Anyway, my point I’d another one. Yes, WE do NEED to move around …. it is not 1890, people expat because they know they can move around quick and easy.
Looks like there’s no willing to setup a safe way to travel, starting from Ireland. There’s an inter-EU plan, yet to be accepted. They could implement covid-free flights, with the fast tampon. In other countries they do that.
There’s a lot to be done before going back to XIX century….
@Proudly Italian:
You should probably read up on cause and effect. YOU do not create or bring a job, your employer brings the job and the effect is created from the job, not you. Without you, someone else would do your job and create everything that you believe you generate.
Again, we don’t need to travel, ‘need’ means we will live or die without it, which is not the case. In addition to not being able to go home, COVID has had a significant impact on me privately. Normally I’d be planning to start my Winter with 3 weeks in a sunny country far away far away. This year it won’t happen. But, I don’t die from it either and no one will die from not travelling but perhaps it stops people moving corona about so it is worth it.
Especially as an Italian, you should understand the devastation that Corona causes when a country tries to ignore it and how different it becomes when it is taken seriously.
Anyway 2020 is a write off, let’s hope by next year things are better!
@Wreck Tangle: Considering that the vast majority of jobs are created by foreign multinationals that look for foreign workers as well as local, being Ireland dependent of that, we could say that one of the main factors for “create” jobs in ireland is being an open country for travel.
It seems that they don’t make any effort on opening the country (no test, no clear rules…) because they don’t won’t people to move and expend money away…
It’s O’Leary fishing for a lufthansa style bailout..
@Michael McGrath:
What a load of nonsense. In this regard, Ryanair is showing itself as a well run airline.
Lufthansa needed a bail out because it got sucked into the US airline model of excessive shareholder value, they pumped all of their profit into share buyback schemes and dividends. Lufthansa post bailout is 20% owned by the German taxpayer. They can do very little with Swiss and Edelweiss without the permission of the Swiss government.
Ryanair thanks to not paying dividend won’t need a bailout. We can be very critical of many things with Ryanair but not on this one.
@Wreck Tangle: I think you are a confused individual.
I wouldnt travel anywhere now. The risk is too great.
Are people still flying anywhere for a holiday or any other reason? Who is flying?
@Robin A Richardson:
There’s a selfish few who will always put themselves first but I think an overwhelming majority do not fly at the moment. Would assume the majority of planes coming in and out of Ireland are carrying freight, not people.
@Robin A Richardson: I have ederly parents back home. I need to see them, so does my kids.
@Proudly Italian: Touch wood it doesn’t happen but I wonder if one of you brings corona to your parents house will you think there was a need.
@Wreck Tangle: Majority of flights in and out of Ireland are on regional or narrowbody pax aircraft (≈88% last week) so you can be sure that they are not carrying much (if any) cargo.
Am I the only one that thinks that the barriers in air travel from the government are more influenced on the fact that they want to avoid that people, spent money outside ireland than in the covid consequences?
Sensible move by Ryanair. The reality here is that flying, like many of us were doing between 2000-2019, is unlikely to return within the next five years, at least.
This is disastrous news, but Lets not think Shannon will be covered with tumbleweed. There are regular planeloads of US troops passing through Shannon all the time.
@Dick Barrett: First 14 days of Oct, there were 12 Omni Air flights via SNN. You reckon that’s enough to sustain the airport? They must pay a lot…..
I hope this headline shouldn’t say forever
Old news
Not like Michael O Leary to be critical of government policy !
Not like Michael O Leary to be critical of government policy !
Not like Michael O Leary to be critical of government policy !
Ryanair close cork kerry and Shannon every winter
@Margaret Kane: No they don’t. They just reduce capacity for low season.
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