As the health and safety concerns due to the spread of Coronavirus COVID-19 continue, Ryanair has announced that it will operate minimum services from the UK and Ireland to meet emergency needs in the coming weeks.
According to a release by Michael O’Leary, Ryanair Group CEO, the Ireland based airline is working to provide repatriation and rescue flights for many EU Governments including the UK. The airline is also offering its aircraft for emergency medical flights, including to/from China.
As most EU countries have imposed flight bans or other restrictions, over 90% of Ryanair’s aircraft will be grounded for the coming weeks. However, the airline will be working with EU Governments to keep some minimum flight links open for emergency reasons, though the passenger loads on these flights will be very low.
For the next week from Friday March 27 to Thursday April 2, Ryanair will operate daily or weekly flights to and from Dublin to London Stansted, London Gatwick, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester and from Cork to London Stansted. From the UK, Ryanair will operate the return services to Dublin from London Stansted, London Gatwick, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester. In addition, the airline will operate services from London Stansted to Eindhoven, Lisbon, Cork, Berlin and Budapest. More information on the flight details at www.ryanair.com.
‘All these aircraft are disinfected daily. With low loads and no trolley service, social distancing will be optimised on-board, and we ask all passengers to cooperate fully with our crews who are doing their best in difficult times to maintain vital links to/from Ireland and to/from the UK to facilitate our passengers and their families to deal with emergencies that may require urgent travel over the coming days and weeks,’ O’Leary said.
‘Ryanair apologises sincerely for the unprecedented grounding of our aircraft fleet, and any schedule disruptions this may have caused, but we must all work together with EU Governments to minimise the impact of Covid-19 on our citizens and our health services,’ he added.
