(Alliance News) - Ryanair Holdings PLC on Monday said it will cut its September and October capacity by 20% as rising Covid-19 cases in Europe have led to increased travel restrictions and fewer bookings.
The budget carrier said most of these cuts will come in the form of fewer flights, rather than full route closures.
The 20% cut comes after "forward bookings have notably weakened over the last 10 days".
Ryanair added that the reduction in flights will be focused on countries like Spain, France and Sweden where Covid-19 cases have risen and have seen travel restrictions tighten.
Ryanair's native Ireland is affected as well, due to its "uniquely restrictive" Green List, which imposes 14-day quarantine measures on all travellers coming from countries such as Germany and the UK. Ryanair noted these countries have actually had lower case rates than Ireland over the past two weeks.
"These capacity cuts and frequency reductions for the months of September & October are necessary given the recent weakness in forward bookings due to Covid restrictions in a number of EU countries," Ryanair said.
"Over the past 2 weeks as a number of EU countries have raised travel restrictions, forward bookings especially for business travel into September & October have been negatively affected, and it makes sense to reduce frequencies so that we tailor our capacity to demand over the next 2 months."
Ryanair shares were 2.8% lower at EUR11.23 each in London on Monday afternoon.
By Eric Cunha; ericcunha@alliancenews.com
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