Low-cost carrier Ryanair has cut capacity for September and
October by 20 per cent because of weaker-than-expected forward bookings.
The airline said bookings have weakened over the last ten
days due to growing uncertainty over rising Covid-19 case rates in some
European countries and continued travel restrictions. Most of the cuts will be
made in the form of frequency reductions as opposed to route closures and will
be “heavily focused” on countries such as Spain, France and Sweden, where an
increase in infections has caused increased travel restrictions. They will also
affect Ireland, which is still imposing a 14-day quarantine for people
travelling from most EU countries, including Germany and the UK.
A spokesperson for Ryanair said: “Over the past two weeks as
a number of EU countries have raised travel restrictions, forward bookings –
especially for business travel – into September and October have been
negatively affected, and it makes sense to reduce frequencies so that we tailor
our capacity to demand over the next two months.
“Proper testing at airports and effective tracing (as is
being conducted in Germany and Italy) is the only realistic and proportionate
method of supervising safe intra-EU air travel while effectively limiting the
spread of the Covid-19 virus.”
The news comes after fellow low-cost carrier Easyjet announced it will close its bases at Stansted, Southend and Newcastle airports at the end of this month, with the many flights to be axed. Finnish airline Finnair is also reducing frequencies on some European routes in September due to low demand.