Ryanair hit by lockdowns as it cuts flight schedules

Ryanair warned that it would carry even fewer passengers than forecast this year after slashing its winter flight schedules in response to the new wave of lockdowns and travel restrictions in the UK and Europe. The low-cost carrier said it expected to run few, if any, flights to and from the UK and Ireland from the end of January until restrictions on movements were eased. As a result, Ryanair has revised down its passenger forecast for the year to March, from below 35m to between 26m to 30m passengers — less than a fifth of the 149m it carried in the previous financial year. The airline also called on the British and Irish governments to speed up their vaccination programmes and said “vaccinations rather than lockdowns is the way out of this Covid-19 crisis”. Changes illustrate how the winter season is turning out to be even worse than expected for Europe’s airlines, despite Ryanair’s expectation that reductions will not hit profitability as the flights were lossmaking. The group’s passenger numbers in January are expected to fall to under 1.25m passengers, and then dip to 500,000 in February and March — the lowest since air travel all but stopped last spring.<br/>