Crew & Passengers To Wear Face Masks & Pass Temperature Checks

Ryanair, Europe’s largest low fares airline, today (Tues 12^th May) announced plans to return to 40% of normal flight schedules from Wed 1 July 2020, subject to Government restrictions on flights being lifted, and effective public health measures being put in place at airports. Ryanair will operate a daily flight schedule of almost 1,000 flights, restoring 90% of its pre-Covid-19 route network. Full details of these routes, frequencies, flight times, and promotional prices are available on www.Ryanair.com

Since the Covid-19 flight restrictions in mid-March, Ryanair has been operating a skeleton daily schedule of 30 flights between Ireland, the UK and Europe. From July, Ryanair will restart flying from most of its 80 bases across Europe. There will be fewer daily/weekly frequencies on trunk routes, as Ryanair works to restore some services on the widest number of routes, rather than operating high frequency services on a small number.

Ryanair also released a return to flying video, (click here) or visit the www.Ryanair.com  homepage, encouraging passengers to observe effective health measures to limit the Covid-19 virus. These include fewer checked bags, check in online, downloading boarding pass to the passenger smart phone, as well as undergoing temperature checks at airport entry and wearing face masks/coverings at all times in the terminal and on board aircraft. All Ryanair aircraft are fitted with HEPA air filters (similar to those used in critical hospital wards) and all aircraft interior surfaces are disinfected every night with chemicals, which are effective for over 24 hours. While temperature checks and face masks/coverings are the cornerstone of this healthy return to service, social distancing at airports and onboard aircraft will be encouraged where it is possible.

On board its aircraft, Ryanair cabin crew will wear face masks/coverings and a limited inflight service will be offered of pre-packaged snacks and drinks, but no cash sales. All onboard transactions will be cashless. Queuing for toilets will also be prohibited on board although toilet access will be made available to individual passengers upon request. Ryanair encourages passengers to regularly hand wash and use hand sanitizers in airport terminals.

As a temporary further public health measure, while EU States emerge from their respective Covid-19 lockdowns, Ryanair will require all passengers flying in July & Aug to fill in details (at the point of check in) of how long their planned visit will be, and also their address while visiting another EU country, and this contact information will be provided to EU Governments to help them to monitor any isolation regulations they require of visitors on intra-EU flights.

Ryanair’s CEO Eddie Wilson said:

“It is important for our customers and our people that we return to some normal schedules from 1 July onwards. Governments around Europe have implemented a 4 month lockdown to limit the spread of the Covid-19 virus. After 4 months, it is time to get Europe flying again  so we can reunite friends and families, allow people to return to work, and restart Europe’s tourism industry, which provides so many millions of jobs.

Ryanair will work closely with public health authorities to ensure that these flights comply, where possible, with effective measures to limit the spread of Covid-19. As already shown in Asia, temperature checks and face masks/coverings are the most effective way to achieve this on short haul (1 hour) within Europe’s single market.

Now that Europe’s States are allowing some gradual return to normal life, we expect this will evolve over the coming weeks and months. With more than 6 weeks to go to 1^st July, Ryanair believes this is the most practical date to resume normal flight schedules, so that we can allow friends and families to reunite, commuters to go back to work, and allow those tourism based economies such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, France and others, to recover what is left of this year’s tourism season.

Seats on all these flights are now on sale at www.Ryanair.com from 1 July, at prices which start from just €19.99 one way. We will continue to work closely with public health agencies to encourage our people and passengers to adopt practical and effective steps to limit the spread of Covid-19 virus, in the best interest of our passengers, our people and our communities”.

https://www.ryanair.com/ie/en/useful-info/healthy-flying

Covid-19 Airspace Closures Impact April Traffic

 

Ryanair Holdings plc today (5 May) released April traffic statistics as follows:

	2019	2020	Growth
Ryanair Group	13.5m	0.04m	-99.6%
Ryanair	13.0m	0.04m	-99.6%
Lauda	0.5m	0.0m	-100%

                                                                                 

Rolling Annual

144.3m

135.1m    (96%)

-6%

 

• Ryanair operated 600 scheduled flights (75,501 budget) in April incl. a number of rescue and medical flights on behalf of various EU Govts.

• 99% of April flights arrived on-time.

• Due to multiple EU Govt flight bans and restrictions, Ryanair expects to carry minimal traffic during the months of May and June as well.

 

Ryanair Holdings Plc today Fri. 1 May updated the market on its traffic projections for Q1, its plans for a likely return to services in Q2, the expected significant decline in current year traffic, and the impact on fares in Europe where the level playing field will be distorted by competing against legacy airlines who are receiving over €30 billion of State Aid, in clear breach of both EU competition and State Aid rules. This unlawful and discriminatory State Aid will be challenged by Ryanair in the European Courts.

Q1 and full year traffic outlook

Due to Continent wide EU Government flight restrictions, Ryanair expects to operate less than 1% of its scheduled flying program in Apr, May & June 2020. Q1 traffic of less than 150,000 passengers will be 99.5% behind the Q1 budget of 42.4m passengers. While some return to flight services is expected in the second (July-Sept) quarter, Ryanair expects to carry no more than 50% of its original traffic target of 44.6m in Q2. For the full year ended March 2021, Ryanair now expects to carry less than 100m passengers, more than 35% below its original 154m target.

State Aid Distorts Competitive Landscape

When scheduled flights return in Europe, sometime in July, Ryanair believes it will take some time for passenger volumes to return. Consumer confidence will be impacted by public health restrictions, such as temperature checks at airports and face coverings for passengers and staff on board aircraft. Ryanair expects traffic on reduced flight schedules will be stimulated by significant price discounting, and below cost selling from flag carriers with huge State Aid war chests (or nationalisation in the case of Alitalia). These lower fares will require aggressive airport price incentives to encourage passengers to travel, and Ryanair continues to call on EU Govts to cut passenger taxes, airport taxes, and departure taxes on an industry wide basis as a better alternative to selective State Aid “doping” for flag carriers.

 

Examples of State Aid Doping – to date
Lufthansa Group		€12.4 billion plus
AF-KLM Group		€10.1 billion plus
TUI Group		€  1.8 billion plus
Alitalia		€  1.7 billion plus
SAS		€  0.8 billion plus
Finnair		€  0.7 billion plus
Norwegian		€  0.3 billion plus

When Ryanair returns to meaningful flying from July, the competitive landscape in Europe will be distorted by unprecedented volumes of State Aid from some EU Governments to their “national” airlines. Currently this amounts to over €30 billion – in addition to payroll supports – mainly to the Lufthansa Group, Air France-KLM, Alitalia, SAS, and Norwegian. All this State Aid is in breach of EU rules, and will distort Europe’s level playing field in airline competition for many years. Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and Alitalia can now fund many years of below cost selling, whereas Ryanair and other well run airlines will not request (and would not receive) such State Aid. Ryanair will challenge these unlawful State Aid bailouts in the EU Courts to protect fair competition in Europe’s aviation market, which has done so much to lower fares for consumers over the last 20 years.

Ryanair has repeatedly called for any State Aid to be transparent and non-discriminatory, such as payroll support schemes. This could, for example in Germany, have involved cutting departure taxes or reducing airport taxes in France, which would have benefited all airlines and passengers equally and not just favoured the local flag carrier. In France, the State is refunding aviation taxes but only to “French” airlines where all other EU airlines flying in France (such as Ryanair, EasyJet & BA) must still pay these taxes. This bailout discrimination is clearly in breach of State Aid and competition rules.

Fleet Review

Ryanair is now reviewing its growth plans, and aircraft orders. We are in active negotiations with both Boeing, and Laudamotion’s A320 lessors to cut the number of planned aircraft deliveries over the next 24 months, which could reduce our capex commitments, to more accurately reflect a slower and more distorted EU air travel market in a post Covid-19 world.

3,000 Job Cuts and Pay Cuts – Consultations

As a direct result of the unprecedented Covid-19 crisis, the grounding of all flights from mid-March until at least July, and the distorted State Aid landscape in Europe, Ryanair now expects the recovery of passenger demand and pricing (to 2019 levels) will take at least 2 years, until summer 2022 at the earliest. The Ryanair Airlines will shortly notify their trade unions about its restructuring and job loss program, which will commence from July 2020. These plans will be subject to consultation but will affect all Ryanair Airlines, and may result in the loss of up to 3,000 mainly pilot and cabin crew jobs, unpaid leave, and pay cuts of up to 20%, and the closure of a number of aircraft bases across Europe until traffic recovers. Job cuts and pay cuts will also be extended to Head Office and Back Office teams. Group CEO Michael O’Leary, whose pay was cut by 50% for April and May, has now agreed to extend this 50% pay cut for the remainder of the financial year to March 2021.

Outlook
As announced on 3 April, given the uncertain duration of the Covid-19 crisis, and a slower return to “normal” flight services, Ryanair cannot provide any guidance for FY21 (year ended March 2021). The Group expects to report a net loss of over €100m in Q1, with further losses in Q2 (peak summer) due to the substantial decline in traffic arising from Covid-19 fleet groundings. Ryanair expects that its return to scheduled services will be rendered more difficult by competing with flag carrier airlines, who will be financing below cost selling with the benefit of over €30 billion in unlawful State Aid, in breach of both EU State Aid and competition rules.

Ryanair entered this unprecedented Covid-19 crisis with almost €4bn in cash, and we continue to actively manage these cash resources to ensure that we can survive this Covid-19 pandemic, and more importantly the return to lower fare flight schedules as soon as possible, when our customers can look forward to more low air fares as we are forced to compete with flag carrier airlines who have received €30 billion in State Aid “doping” to allow them to sustain below cost selling for months after this Covid-19 crisis has passed, as it certainly will over the coming months.