Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary has declared it “irresponsible” and “inappropriate” to encourage travel during the coronavirus epidemic.
O’Leary spoke out at the Airlines for Europe (A4E) summit in Brussels this week. He told industry leaders and Europe’s media: “The day after 9/11 Ryanair went out with a seat sale. We’re not doing that now.”
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He insisted: “This is a public health issue. The responsible thing is not to encourage irresponsible travel. It would be entirely inappropriate.”
O’Leary still hit out at the Italian government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, saying: “We need to keep people moving. The Italian government overreacted by cancelling everything.”
But he added: “I think governments learned from what happened in Italy.”
He reported Ryanair bookings focused on Italy as “down 25% for the next two weeks, so we have reduced flights to and from Italy up to 25%”.
But the Ryanair boss suggested the overall impact on traffic could be lower, saying: “Will Easter bookings collapse? We still see strong bookings over Easter – the second and third week of April.
“I think our [total] traffic will be down 10% in April and 10% in May, and demand will return in June, July and August when temperatures rise – which is not good for viruses – stimulated by good prices.”
Lufthansa flight cancellations
Fellow airline chiefs agreed. Lufthansa Group chief executive Carsten Spohr told the summit: “Long-range traffic is a concern for us. We had 60 flights a week just to China.” All Lufthansa’s services to China remain cancelled.
Spohr said: “I tend to agree this may not be a long-term thing, but we don’t know.”
He pointed out airlines’ concerns are not just related to flights, saying: “What do you do if the authorities close your building down?”
Italy coronavirus reaction ‘severe’, says IAG boss Willie Walsh
Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways and Iberia parent IAG, said: “You would expect demand to come back quickly if you look at past experiences. Everyone wants to get back to business quickly.”
He noted: “The reaction to Italy was severe, and customers did not differentiate between north and south Italy – it was just Italy.”
But Walsh dismissed comparisons with 9/11. He said: “It is very different to 9/11 when we saw a very strong reluctance to travel transatlantic.
“Airlines kept flying then. But fuel was 10% of our costs then [in 2001], it is 30%-40% now.
“This time we’re taking aircraft out. We learned from 2001, 2003, 2008, 2011 and the industry will respond. We’ll make decisions quickly.”
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Posted by Travel Weekly UK on Wednesday, March 4, 2020