Ryanair to suspend ops at four out of five Irish airports

Ryanair (FR, Dublin Int’l) will suspend operations at four of the five airports in its home market – Cork, Kerry, Knock, and Shannon – for four weeks, blaming Ireland’s strict coronavirus travel restrictions, the airline revealed in a statement on October 27. From November 14 until December 12, the only airport it will fly from in Ireland will be Dublin Int’l, but flights from the other airports “will resume” ahead of Christmas, the statement said. Under rules that will last at least until December 1, Irish residents are advised against all non-essential travel taking them more than five kilometres from home. On October 28, Ireland reported the lowest number of covid-19 cases for almost three weeks, its seven-day average falling for the seventh consecutive day after the country deployed some of Europe’s tightest restrictions. “As a result of continuous government mismanagement and a complete collapse in travel demand, additional cuts regrettably had to be made across our Irish airports,” the Ryanair statement said. According to the ch-aviation capacities module, Ryanair currently operates 73 services from Ireland, 62 of which are from Dublin. The remainder are three from Cork, to London Stansted (7x weekly), Katowice (2x weekly), and Gdansk (1x weekly); three from Knock, to London Luton (3x weekly), Liverpool (2x weekly), and London Stansted (2x weekly); three from Shannon, to London Stansted (5x weekly), Manchester Int’l (2x weekly), and Wroclaw (1x weekly); and two from Kerry, to London Luton (2x weekly) and London Stansted (2x weekly). Earlier in October, Ryanair further cut its overall planned winter capacity to 40% of what it operated last year, down from a previous forecast of 60%. Knock, also known as Ireland West Airport, said in a statement on October 27 that it would close for the same four-week period as a result of the Ryanair suspension and “due to a complete collapse in travel demand.”