Ryanair expected to resume full schedule from tomorrow
Ryanair today confirmed that it continues to operate Southbound flights from Spain, Southern Italy, South of France, Malta and Morocco as scheduled. From tomorrow, Ryanair expects to resume a full schedule of Northern European flights (except flights between Ireland and the UK).
Passengers holding reservations on these flights at these airports, should continue to present themselves at these airports as normal on Thurs 22nd April.
Ryanair has today (21 April) decided to cancel all of its flights between Ireland and the UK until 05.00hrs on Friday 23rd April in order to use these UK and Irish based aircraft to operate extra flights from the UK to Continental Europe; and from Ireland to Continental Europe on Thurs 22nd April to clear any backlog of disrupted passengers.
Ryanair is announcing these decisions in order to give intending passengers as much notice as possible of the likely developments in European airspace over the coming two/three days.
Speaking on Wednesday, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said:
“We welcome today’s reopening of European airspace, but would caution that capacity limitations will give rise to considerable ATC and airport delays over the next few days, as all airlines struggle to clear the backlog of disrupted passengers. Ryanair expects to operate a substantial proportion of our scheduled flight operations in Northern Europe from 05.00hrs on Thursday 22 April. We have decided to cancel our scheduled operations between Ireland and the UK until 05.00hrs on Friday, since most passengers travelling between Ireland and the UK can switch to coach and ferry alternatives, and this will allow us to reallocate these aircraft to operate extra flights between the UK and Continental Europe, and between Ireland and Continental Europe from Thursday, to try to clear any backlog of disrupted passengers between the UK and Europe and between Ireland and Europe. Details of all of these extra flights and our schedules for the next few days are available on ryanair.com.
“We presently hope to resume the Ireland to UK flight operations (incl. domestic flights in those countries - subject only to ATC restrictions and weather forecasts) from 05.00hrs on Friday 23rd April and we have issued instructions to all of our airports that our immediate priority will be to ensure that no seat operates empty, while there are backlogs of disrupted passengers wishing to travel. Accordingly Ryanair will be operating extra flights on those routes where we believe there are significant numbers of disrupted passengers. Ryanair will also be suspending all airport check-in and baggage fees during the initial days so that our handling agents can prioritise getting flights out on time and processing standby passenger lists. Similarly, while we will consider all passenger requests for reimbursement of reasonable receipted expenses over the past week, any such reimbursement will be limited – as it is in the case of rail, coach and ferry passengers - to the original air fare paid by each passenger.
“I again wish to apologise sincerely to all Ryanair passengers for the disruptions they have suffered over the past seven days, and to assure them that we are working around the clock to provide them with as much information as we can, as early as we can, in order to minimise the disruptions and inconvenience they are suffering. We continue to prioritise the safety of our passengers, crews and aircraft both prior to and following their return to service. Ryanair hopes to operate a number of test flights across Europe later today (Wednesday 21st Apr) in order to verify and satisfy ourselves that it is safe to resume flight operations in Northern Europe on Thursday 22nd.
“As always all up to date information in Ryanair’s possession is communicated on our website and I urge all passengers to continue to monitor ryanair.com for details of extra flights and the resumption of scheduled services on their particular routes.”