Budget airline Ryanair has announced its slashing more than 1,000 flights between the UK and Ireland in August and September as a result of Ireland's quarantine restrictions over coronavirus.
The news affects more than 200,000 passengers who would've been due to travel over the peak summer months, the company said.
The decision was taken as Ireland maintains what it describes as "a defective quarantine restriction on EU visitors, even as the UK and Northern Ireland last week opened up air bridges to most EU countries."
Ireland - which accounts for less than eight per cent of Ryanair's traffic - will now suffer unrecoverable losses, the airline said "particularly for its tourism industry and connectivity for Irish workers commuting to and from the UK."
Arriving EU passengers are forced to quarantine in Ireland, despite the border to Northern Ireland being open.
In a statement, Ryanair said: "Last week, when the UK and Northern Ireland removed travel restrictions on short haul flights to and from the European Union, Ireland became the only country in the EU with a blanket 14-day quarantine restriction on all arrivals from EU countries, most of which have lower Covid case rates than Ireland."
The company said it "makes no sense" for the Irish government to treat countries like Germany, Denmark and Greece "as if they were suffering similar levels of Covid as the USA, Brazil and India" when governments all over Europe have opened up EU flights since June 1 and removed travel restrictions on intra-EU travel.
Ryanair said air travel between Ireland the UK is being "badly damaged by this ineffective 14-day quarantine."
It was significantly reducing its flights in August and September to reflect the suppressed demand.
"This means 100,000 fewer visitors from the UK travelling to regional airports in Cork, Shannon, Knock and Kerry during the peak months of the tourism season", it added.
Ireland's blanket quarantine is "damaging the recovery of Ireland's economy and tourism industry, causing long-term damage to jobs in Ireland's largest employment sector."
Ryanair said it is calling on the Irish government to remove all travel restrictions between Ireland and EU as a matter of urgency "so that Ireland's hotels, guest houses, restaurants and other tourism providers can recover their business and minimise job losses before we reach the downturn winter months."
