Ryanair axes 1,000 f lights ‘due to 14-day quarantine’
RYANAIR will axe up to 1,000 flights between Ireland and Britain over the peak summer season, it announced yesterday, blaming the Government’s ‘ineffective’ quarantine for a collapse in bookings.
One travel expert said the flyer was simply ‘meeting the demand’, while the airline said Ireland’s tourism sector is ‘suffering unrecoverable losses’ due to the 14-day quarantine rule for new arrivals into the country.
Ryanair said yesterday: ‘This means 100,000 fewer visitors from the UK travelling to regional airports in Cork, Shannon, Knock and Kerry during peak months of the tourism season.’
Dublin Airport saw its daily passengers more than triple last week, as 4,000 people a day arrived compared to just 1,200 the previous week. However, that is a tiny fraction of the numbers at this time last year when there were 110,000 passengers.
A Ryanair spokesman said: ‘Last week... Ireland became the only country in the EU with a blanket 14-day quarantine restriction on all arrivals from EU countries, most of which have lower Covid case rates than Ireland.
‘It makes no sense, when governments
‘Citizens of Northern Ireland travel freely’
all over Europe have opened up EU flights since June 1 and removed travel restrictions on intra-EU travel, that the Irish Government continues to treat countries like Germany, Denmark and Greece as if they were suffering similar levels of Covid as the USA, Brazil and India.
‘Irish citizens are being advised by their Government that they should not travel to and from EU countries (almost all of whom have lower Covid case rates than Ireland), yet citizens of Northern Ireland can travel freely to and from the EU – via Dublin Airport – without any quarantine restrictions.’ It said the policy was damaging the recovery of the economy.
Michael O’Leary’s airline called on the Government to remove all travel restrictions between Ireland and the EU ‘as a matter of urgency’, so hotels, restaurants and other tourist businesses can recover and limit job losses. ‘If Micheál Martin does not quarantine for 14 days after visiting Brussels this week, then why should any other Irish or EU citizen be treated differently?’ it said.
Ryanair was simply ‘cutting its cloth’ to suit the demand on many of its Ireland/Britain routes, according to travel industry expert Eoghan Corry.
He said: ‘They’re looking at their load factors and how governments react and in what way. They’re saying it’s the Government’s fault, but it’s also the load factors. The inclination to book is what will make them decide it. If they’ve got five flights a day to Birmingham, they’re reluctant to cut the route altogether, so they’ll reduce the routes they have a lot of flights on. So if they have enough passengers through the day to fill one flight, they’ll cut it to one flight.’
Meanwhile, Aer Lingus staff represented by Siptu have rejected negotiated proposals for pay cuts and work practice reforms. The package would have kept pay at 50% of pre-Covid rates, rather than the current, more severe cut to 30% of pre-pandemic pay, and averted layoffs.
It’s understood that 55% of those who voted rejected the deal.
Cabin crew represented by Fórsa had previously rejected a similar package, though the deal they balloted on had already been withdrawn by Aer Lingus management because unions had missed an acceptance deadline.
However, pilots have accepted a separate set of proposals with fixed dates for gradual restoration of pay.