From 27th March to 2nd April, Ryanair will operate just 13 routes from the island of Ireland, 12 from Dublin and one from Cork. There are no services from Kerry, Shannon, Ireland West Airport, City of Derry Airport or Belfast Aldergrove. The airline have offered their aircraft to European governments for emergency medical flights, including to/from China if required. As most EU countries have imposed flight bans or other restrictions, over 90% of Ryanair’s aircraft will be grounded for the coming weeks.
A statement from the company regarding the reduced schedule said: “All these aircraft are disinfected daily. With low loads and no trolley service, social distancing will be optimised on-board, and we ask all passengers to cooperate fully with our crews who are doing their best in difficult times to maintain vital links to/from Ireland and to/from the UK to facilitate our passengers and their families to deal with emergencies that may require urgent travel over the coming days and weeks.”
Ryanair DAC and the other group airlines (Ryanair UK, Malta Air, Buzz and Lauda) will operate a number of recency flights to keep aircraft, pilots and engineers current and available should they be required. The recency flights resemble a large radar vectored circuit as seen below yesterday when 737-700 EI-SEV undertook one such flight from Dublin.
List of flights to operate until 2nd April from Ireland and the UK
| To/From Ireland | To/From the UK |
| Dublin – London (STN) | London (STN) – Dublin |
| Dublin – London (GAT) | London (GAT) – Dublin |
| Dublin – Birmingham | Birmingham – Dublin |
| Dublin – Bristol | Edinburgh – Dublin |
| Dublin – Edinburgh | Bristol – Dublin |
| Dublin – Glasgow | Glasgow – Dublin |
| Dublin – Manchester | Manchester – Dublin |
| Dublin – Amsterdam | London (STN) – Eindhoven |
| Dublin – Brussels | London (STN) – Lisbon |
| Dublin – Berlin | London (STN) – Cork |
| Dublin – Lisbon | London (STN) – Berlin |
| Dublin – Cologne | London (STN) – Budapest |
| Cork – London (STN) |
In light of the COVID-19 crisis, S&P Global has lowered its credit ratings for EasyJet, Ryanair, Lufthansa, IAG, British Airways, Air Baltic, Turkish Airlines and SAS, and placed them on alert for further downgrades as the coronavirus hurts their liquidity positions.
