O’Leary faces facts

Ryanair is to dramatically cut flights between November and March due to the European coronavirus travel restrictions.

In a Stock Market statement Ryanair said it anticipates that this winter it will operate % of the capacity it flew last year, down from an earlier forecast of 60%. 

It expects to fly 38m passengers in its financial year to March 2021 from a forecast of 50m made in September and from 149m flown last year.  Load factor will be only 70% against 90% plus in normal times.

Ryanair Group Chief Executive Michael O'Leary attacked the politicos, a comment said “unnecessary” by another airline boss.

He said: 'While we deeply regret these winter schedule cuts, they have been forced upon us by government mismanagement of EU air travel.

“Our focus continues to be on maintaining as large a schedule as we can sensibly operate to keep our aircraft, our pilots and our cabin crew current and employed while minimising job losses.

“It is inevitable, given the scale of these cutbacks, that we will be implementing more unpaid leave, and job-sharing this winter in those bases where we have agreed reduced working time and pay, but this is a better short-term outcome than mass job losses.”

In a sign of the long-term problems facing the sector, EasyJet has also said it will only fly 25% of planned services until the end of December.

https://www.ryanair.com

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Allan Schoenherr, Prague, CZ

I can't see the new forecast % of flights being operated, just that it is down from 60%. Can anyone clarify?