Ryanair has announced big cuts to its winter flight schedule

Ryanair has announced big cuts to its winter flight schedule

By Onlykhabar News Media Fri 16 October, 2020 ( about 5 years ago ) 🎤593 Viewersbusiness

Ryanair has announced big cuts to its winter flight schedule, saying it will operate at only 40% of last year's capacity.

It said the cuts were in response to increased flight restrictions imposed because of the coronavirus pandemic. This had led to "materially" weaker bookings in November and December.  "With this greatly reduced winter capacity and load factors of approximately 70%, Ryanair now expects full-year traffic to fall to approximately 38 million guests, although this guidance could be further revised downwards if EU governments continue to mismanage air travel and impose more lockdowns this winter," the airline said. 

The airline is closing its bases in Cork, Shannon, and Toulouse for the winter, but expects to maintain 65% of routes with reduced frequencies. Ryanair's group chief executive Michael O'Leary said the airline deeply regretted the schedule cuts, which he said had been forced on it by "government mismanagement of EU air travel". "There will regrettably be more redundancies at those small number of cabin crew bases, where we have still not secured agreement on working time and pay cuts, which is the only alternative. He added: "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. 

"We continue to actively manage our cost base to be prepared for the inevitable rebound and recovery of short haul air travel in Europe once an effective Covid-19 vaccine is developed." Earlier this year, foreign travel was paralysed for several months by the pandemic, with airlines, airports and tour firms shedding thousands of jobs. At the same time, he has praised the Italian and German governments for having "a much more aggressive test and trace system". Since then, constant changes to the UK's list of countries subject to quarantine have confused potential holidaymakers and hampered the travel industry's efforts to recover.

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By Onlykhabar News Media Fri 16 October, 2020 🎤593 Viewersbusiness
TAGS: Ryanair Aerospace Air Travel
Ryanair has announced big cuts to its winter flight schedule

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