Ryanair will not cancel flights to and from the United Kingdom despite the government introducing a 14 day quarantine for international travellers.
Asked whether Ryanair would cancel July and August flights if the quarantine remained in place during those months, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary told Radio 4 listeners: “No, because the flights are full outbound of the UK. British people are ignoring this quarantine, they know it’s rubbish.”
“Ryanair is operating a thousand daily flights to points all over Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece from the 1st of July, the 2nd, the 3rd and every day after that.”
It comes as new rules requiring all arrivals to self-isolate for 14 days come into effect today.
All passengers - bar a handful of exemptions - will have to fill out an online locator form giving their contact and travel details, as well as the address of where they will isolate, under Government measures that come into force from Monday to guard against a second wave of coronavirus.
People who fail to comply could be fined £1,000 in England, and police will be allowed to use what is termed “reasonable force” to make sure they follow the rules.
Border Force officers will carry out checks on arrivals and may refuse entry to a non-resident foreign national who refuses to comply with the regulations.
The plans have been met with strong criticism from opposition parties and some Conservative MPs - as well as the travel industry.
Ryanair, easyJet and BA-owner IAG have launched legal proceedings against the quarantine which is designed to prevent a second surge of COVID-19.
A leaked Home Office document seen by The Daily Telegraph reportedly said there was no method for officials to ensure a person’s details are “genuine”.
The quarantine regulations must be reviewed every three weeks, with the first taking place by June 29.
They could be in place for a year, when the legislation expires, unless the Government decides to scrap it sooner.
Heathrow's chief executive has also weighed into the row, warning that hundreds of thousands of jobs, if not millions, could be lost if the airline industry is not able to resume quickly.
“We cannot go on like this as a country,” Heathrow boss John Holland-Kaye told Sky News.
“We need to start planning to reopen our borders. If we don’t get aviation moving again quickly, in a very safe way, then we are going to lose hundreds of thousands if not millions of jobs in the UK just at the time when we need to be rebuilding our economy.”
