Ryanair is to axe more than one in three of its flight routes this winter due to low demand amid coronavirus travel restrictions across Europe.
The budget airline announced that it will only maintain up to 65% of its route network between November and March.
It will close its bases in Cork and Shannon as well as in Toulouse in France during the five-month period.
Routes that do survive will be served with a lower frequency of flights than normal.
It comes after aviation bosses warned the Government the sector will "not bounce back" from the coronavirus pandemic as they called for flying restrictions to be lifted.
Transport Minister Eamon Ryan has said the Government will seek to support and implement new European measures to introduce green and amber zones for safe travel within the EU.
But he was criticised by airline chiefs when he could not provide a timeline for their introduction.
Mr Ryan told the Oireachtas Transport Committee the Government wants to "work with European countries where we can say 'Yes, we are recommending that it's safe to travel again'."
He added: "There has been a conflict or a difficulty within Government because there's also an imperative towards public health and avoiding the risk of the virus coming in from international travel."
Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson criticised the Government's response as "catastrophic" and said every other European country has returned to flying.
He said Ireland has effectively said "we're closed for business" as he urged the Government to urgently adopt the EU traffic light system.
He said: "If we don't make those decisions now, next summer that traffic will migrate elsewhere in Europe.
"It's not going to bounce back. The Government seems to think it's going to bounce back. It isn't."
The DAA chief executive Dalton Philips also warned that it was "dangerous to assume that routes withdrawn in the last six months will simply re-emerge overnight".
He said the DAA's airports were "running on empty" with passenger numbers returning to levels not seen since 1995.
