Ryanair warns of airline bankruptcies

Ryanair today warned passengers against booking their summer holidays with flaky charter airlines or shoddy holiday companies as it predicted that the spate of airline bankruptcies, which disrupted the summer holiday plans of millions of passengers this year, looks set to continue into next year.

Launching its 2009 Summer Schedule, Ryanair warned that the high-profile bankruptcies of Futura Gael, XL Holidays (UK), Zoom, Sterling and LTE, which left millions of people stranded this year, highlighted the need for passengers to travel with secure airlines which can survive the global economic downturn.

Ryanair's summer schedule offers the guaranteed lowest airfares, no fuel surcharge and the security of travelling with Europe's most financially-secure airline, on over 800 summer routes across 26 European countries with over 50 million seats available from March to October.

To celebrate the launch of its summer schedule, Ryanair released 1 million Free - Just Pay Taxes and Charges seats for travel in April and May next. These seats are available for booking on Ryanair.com until midnight Wednesday 10 December.

Stephen McNamara, Ryanair's Head of Communications, said: "Ryanair came to the rescue of thousands of passengers this summer who were left stranded when their airline or tour operator went bust without warning. As we launch our summer schedule, we advise passengers not to risk their summer holiday plans by booking with flaky airlines or shoddy tour operators which they know little or nothing about.

"Ryanair is Europe's most financially-secure airline and guarantees the lowest air fares and no fuel surcharge on over 800 routes across 26 countries for Summer 2009, so your summer holiday has never been better value or more secure than with Ryanair.

"No-one beats Ryanair for price, choice or reliability and we urge passengers to take advantage of our unbeatable summer bargains by logging on to ryanair.com before midnight 10 December and secure our 1 million Free - Just Pay Taxes and Charges seats."