The Irish low-cost airline Ryanair has announced that it will ground almost all of its aircraft in Europe for the next seven to ten days.
Over the past week, the spread of the Covid-19 virus and associated Government travel restrictions have had a significant and negative impact on the schedules of all Ryanair Group Airlines.
Over the past 7 days, Italy, Malta, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Greece, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Norway and Cyprus have imposed flight bans of varying degrees, from all flights to/from the country, or banned flights to/from countries with high risk of Covid infection. Over the weekend for example, Poland and Norway have banned all international flights, while in other countries (without travel bans) there has been severe reduction of ATC and essential airport services.
Ryanair expects the result of these restrictions will be the grounding of the majority of its aircraft fleet across Europe over the next 7 to 10 days. In those countries where the fleet is not grounded, social distancing restrictions may make flying to all intents and purposes, impractical, if not, impossible.
For April and May, Ryanair now expects to reduce its seat capacity by up to 80%, and a full grounding of the fleet cannot be ruled out. Ryanair is taking immediate action to reduce operating expenses, and improve cash flows. This will involve grounding surplus aircraft, deferring all capex and share buybacks, freezing recruitment and discretionary spending, and implementing a series of voluntary leave options, temporarily suspending employment contracts, and significant reductions to working hours and payments. We are working with our people and our unions across all EU countries to address this extraordinary and unprecedented Covid-19 event, the impact and duration of which is, at this time, impossible to determine.
The Ryanair Group has strong liquidity, with strong cash and cash equivalents of over €4 billion as at March 12. Its focus is on completing as much of the scheduled flying program as is permitted by National Governments over the next 7 days, so that it can repatriate customers, where possible, even as flight bans are imposed and ATC and essential airport services are reduced.
