[ad_1]
Ryanair could cut more flights in the Republic if strict travel restrictions are maintained, warned one of the group’s top executives.
The news comes after reports that Aer Lingus is considering moving long-haul planes from Shannon to one of six UK regional airports to combat restrictions.
Eddie Wilson, CEO of Ryanair DAC, the group’s largest affiliate, said Tuesday that other “more progressive countries” were offering incentives to the airline to install planes at their airports during the winter.
He warned that “capacity would go elsewhere” if the government did not add at least key EU trading partners, such as Germany and the UK, to its green list of safe travel countries.
Mr. Wilson noted that these states had lower Covid-19 infection rates than the Republic, but the Government continued to exclude them. This means that passengers there must remain in quarantine for 14 days after their arrival in the Republic.
Ryanair is cutting scheduled times in the Republic for September and October by 20 percent as restrictions act as a drag on demand here.
The airline agreed to an agreement on pay cuts and changes in work practices with pilots and crew based in the Republic that, it said, avoided the need for layoffs among staff here.
However, Wilson couldn’t rule out having to review that if the restrictions continued. “We may have to go back to them and tell them that we can’t even make that work,” he said.
He also noted that where airlines fly their planes for the winter often influences what they do the following summer.
Mr. Wilson called on the government to implement the recommendations of its own Aviation Recovery Task Force, which recommends lifting these travel restrictions for EU countries.
He noted that the report was published on July 7, but the government has not yet acted on it. “We just want to know what they are going to do with their own report. What you need to do today is remove travel restrictions in the UK and Europe. ”
Business partners
He said that people from at least 10 other EU countries with lower Covid-19 infection rates than the Republic were subject to quarantines upon arriving here. These countries included the largest economies in the bloc, Germany and France, which were important trading partners.
“The UK is our biggest trading partner and they can’t come here to do business,” he said.
The airline executive stated that travel had become the scapegoat for waves of Covid-19 that were actually due to poor track and trace in places like meat plants.
He also noted that Michael Ryan, director of the World Health Organization, has said that the locks do not work.
Official figures show that the number of flights in the EU is close to half what it was a year ago, while in the Republic traffic has dropped by almost 90 percent.
Air travel has increased across the bloc since spring, when the European Center for Disease Control and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued guidelines for their safe return.
[ad_2]