Ryanair is grounding the majority of flights with flying near "impossible" amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Over the past 7 days, Italy, Malta, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia,Austria, Greece, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Norway and Cyprus have imposed flight bans of varying degrees, from all flights to/from the country, or banned flights to/from countries with high risk of Covid infection.
Ryanair expects the result of these restrictions will be the grounding of the majority of its aircraft fleet across Europe over the next 7 to 10 days.
The company said that in those countries where the fleet is not grounded, social distancing restrictions may make flying "to all intents and purposes, impractical, if not, impossible".
Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said: "At the Ryanair Group Airlines, we are doing everything we can to meet the challenge posed by the Covid-19 outbreak, which has over the last week caused extraordinary and unprecedented travel restrictions to be
imposed by National Governments, in many cases with minimal or zero notice.
"We are communicating with all affected passengers by email and SMS, and we are organising rescue flights to repatriate customers, even in those countries where travel bans have been imposed.
"Our priority remains the health and welfare of our people and our passengers, and we are doing everything we can to ensure that they can be reunited with their friends and families during these difficult times.
"Ryanair is taking all actions necessary to cut operating expenses, and improve cash flows at each of our airlines.
"Ryanair is a resilient airline group, with a very strong balance sheet, and substantial cash liquidity, and we can, and will, with appropriate and timely action, survive through a prolonged period of reduced or even zero flight schedules, so that we are adequately prepared for the return to normality, which will come about sooner rather than later as EU Governments take unprecedented action to restrict the spread of Covid-19”.
