Ryanair has reiterated concerns about its ability to operate flights from the UK post Brexit.
Chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs, releasing details of the Irish carrier’s winter schedule from London-area airports, repeated worries voiced by chief executive Michael O’Leary earlier this week.
Winter 2018-19 fares from UK airports will become available from next month but uncertainty exists over the budget carrier’s summer 2019 fleet deployment.
However, given the uncertainty surrounding Brexit in March 2019, Ryanair reiterated the need for clarity before it publishes its summer 2019 schedule in the second quarter of this year.
The airline warned “it may be forced to consider a change to its terms and conditions for travel to/from the UK” after April 1, 2019 “should the legal basis for the operation of flights between the UK and the EU by autumn 2018 remain undefined”.
Jacobs said: “We remain concerned at the uncertainty which surrounds the terms of the UK’s departure from the EU in March ’19.
“While we continue to campaign for the UK to remain in the EU open skies agreement, we caution that should the UK leave, there may not be sufficient time, or goodwill on both sides, to negotiate a timely replacement bilateral which could result in a disruption of flights between the UK and Europe for a period of time from April ’19 onwards, and/or the cancellation of flights and routes, and the movement of our based aircraft to continental Europe.”
New domestic routes from Stansted to Belfast and Edinburgh are being introduced for next winter together with flights to Nantes in France.
The airline’s London winter timetable covers 143 routes with a capacity for 24.5 million passengers, the bulk from Stansted.
Ryanair will serve Belfast three times a day and Edinburgh four times a day in winter with Nantes having four flights a week.
Frequency is being raised on 15 existing routes from Stansted as the carrier plans a winter timetable of 123 services from the Essex airport.
Ryanair will continue to connect London with major business centres on high frequency, low fare services including Berlin with four flights a day, Dublin with 18 a day, Madrid with four a day and Rome with five a day, with better timings and lower fares.
The airline is to serve 15 destinations from Luton next winter and five from Gatwick to Alicante, Belfast, Cork, Dublin and Shannon.
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