Ryanair slams ‘government mismanagement’ as it cuts capacity again
Ryanair today launched a fresh attack on the government for its “continuous changes” in travel restrictions as it announced it would cut its October capacity by a further 20 per cent.
It follows a 20 per cent capacity cut announced last month, meaning the budget airline now expects its October capacity to fall from 50 per cent to roughly 40 per cent of levels in the same month last year.
However, Ryanair said it expected these flights to be at least 70 per cent full.
The company blamed the move on “continuous changes in EU government travel restrictions and policies, many of which are introduced at short notice”.
It said these had harmed customer confidence and impacted forward bookings.
“We are disappointed to reduce our October capacity from 50 per cent of 2019 to 40 per cent,” a Ryanair spokesperson said.
“However, as customer confidence is damaged by government mismanagement of Covid travel policies, many Ryanair customers are unable to travel for business or urgent family reasons without being subjected to defective 14-day quarantines.”
The airline warned that similar capacity cuts may be required over the winter period if current trends continued.
Ryanair singled out Ireland for its “excessive and defective” travel restrictions. It also called on transport minister Eamon Ryan to explain why health authorities had “kept Ireland locked up like North Korea since 1 July”.
“Intra EU air travel is not the problem and these defective travel bans are not a solution,” the spokesperson said.