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Ryanair will suspend flights from regional airports, including Ireland West, Cork and Shannon airports, from November 14 to December 12.
In a statement, Ryanair said it recently announced its reduced winter hours, which reduced its capacity to 40% compared to last year.
“As a result of continued government mismanagement and a total collapse in travel demand, unfortunately additional cuts had to be made at our Irish airports,” he said.
“From November 14 to December 12, Ryanair will only operate from Dublin airport in Ireland, but operations will resume on December 13 before the Christmas season to allow Irish families to reunite,” he added.
Ireland West Airport said today that it will close for four weeks, from November 14 to December 13, as a result of the suspension of Ryanair flights from Co Mayo Airport.
The suspension of flights is due to a collapse in travel demand as a result of the continued impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and current travel restrictions.
Ireland West Airport said the move was a more devastating blow to the airport and its staff.
It would have been due to operate 31 weekly services to six different destinations in the UK and Europe this winter. These routes were initially reduced to 16 services per week and then to seven per week.
The number of passengers at the airport has plummeted by more than 90% and the annual number of passengers is now expected to decline to less than 150,000 for the entire year, the lowest in more than 20 years.
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Niall MacCarthy, Managing Director of Cork Airport, said the news that Ryanair will cancel all flights from Cork Airport from early November to mid-December is a further blow to the Irish aviation industry and to Cork and the southern Ireland especially.
MacCarthy said Cork Airport still expects at this stage to have between 14 and 18 flights per week with KLM and Aer Lingus in Amsterdam and Heathrow.
“However, our number of passengers for November this year is likely to be 9,000 compared to 172,000 in the same month last year, a decrease of 95%,” he said.
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Mary Considine, Managing Director of the Shannon Group, said Ryanair’s decision to temporarily halt all its flights from Shannon for more than a month was “extremely disappointing”.
Considine said the latest development comes less than two weeks after the airline announced it was temporarily closing its Cork and Shannon hubs for the winter.
“It is one more illustration of the devastating impact of the pandemic on the aviation sector. This latest development effectively means that we will not have scheduled services at Shannon for a month,” he said.
He also called for an urgent financial lifeline for Shannon Airport and a support package for the aviation sector in the National Economic Plan to be announced next month.
Shannon Airport will remain open for cargo service, general aviation, transit business and to facilitate hangar movements.
Ryanair Chief Executive Eddie Wilson said the aviation situation is so bad that the country’s second city, Cork, will have no inbound or outbound Ryanair flights for a period of five weeks.
Speaking at the Oireachtas Transportation Committee today, the CEO of Ryanair said that there are some flights on sale for next summer, but added that there is a reasonable chance that bases in Cork and Shannon will not reopen.
He said he was concerned that the government would manipulate the issue and introduce a traffic light system that would put Ireland at a disadvantage compared to other European countries.
Pre-departure tests at airports
The executive director of the Dublin Airport Authority told the committee that passenger testing should be implemented prior to departure rather than quarantined.
Dalton Philips said a recent survey by the International Air Transport Association found that 83% of consumers say they will not travel if they have to self-quarantine upon arrival, and 99% said they are willing to be screened to facilitate travel.
He said that two-thirds of European countries offer tests at airports.
He also said the DAA had secured supplies to provide pre-departure facilities at the airport, but had not been provided with a planning exemption to establish it.
He also said that any pre-departure test must be paid for by the passenger.
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