Ryanair plans to restore majority of its routes from July 1

Ryanair plans to reintroduce 40% of its flights from July 1, subject to travel restrictions being lifted and safety measures being brought in at airports.

The airline said that it will operate almost 1,000 flights a day, bringing back 90% of its regular routes.

Currently, Ryanair is only operating 30 flights a day between the UK, Ireland and Europe, but it announced this week that it plans to add three more routes from Stansted later this month.

In a statement today, the airline said that from July 1 it will start flying from ‘most’ of its 80 bases. "There will be fewer daily/weekly frequencies on trunk routes, as Ryanair works to restore some services on the widest number of routes, rather than operating high frequency services on a small number," it added.

The airline has released a new video on social media advising people on new measures being introduced, including a requirement for passengers to download boarding passes, take their own temperature before travelling, which might be checked at airports, they will have to wear face masks at the airport and on aircraft, and there will be a ban on queuing for toilets onboard. "Toilet access will be made available to individual passengers upon request," it said.

Refreshements will be served inflight, but these will be limited and all transactions will be cashless.

Ryanair said that aircraft will be disinfected overnight and stressed that the air filters used onboard are hospital quality.

Ryanair is using the opportunity to encourage passengers to pay extra for additional services such as two carry on bags, which will avoid them having to use the bag drop machines, and fast track and priority boarding to avoid queues.

"As a temporary further public health measure, while EU States emerge from their respective Covid-19 lockdowns, Ryanair will require all passengers flying in July and August to fill in details (at the point of check in) of how long their planned visit will be, and also their address while visiting another EU country, and this contact information will be provided to EU Governments to help them to monitor any isolation regulations they require of visitors on intra-EU flights," the airline added.

Ryanair’s CEO Eddie Wilson said: "It is important for our customers and our people that we return to some normal schedules from 1 July onwards. Governments around Europe have implemented a four-month lockdown to limit the spread of the Covid-19 virus. After four months, it is time to get Europe flying again so we can reunite friends and families, allow people to return to work, and restart Europe’s tourism industry, which provides so many millions of jobs. 

"Ryanair will work closely with public health authorities to ensure that these flights comply, where possible, with effective measures to limit the spread of Covid-19. As already shown in Asia, temperature checks and face masks/coverings are the most effective way to achieve this on short haul (one hour) within Europe’s single market.

"Now that Europe’s States are allowing some gradual return to normal life, we expect this will evolve over the coming weeks and months. With more than six weeks to go to July 1, Ryanair believes this is the most practical date to resume normal flight schedules, so that we can allow friends and families to reunite, commuters to go back to work, and allow those tourism based economies such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, France and others, to recover what is left of this year’s tourism season."