Ryanair suspends EX-YU operations until late March
Low cost carrier Ryanair has temporarily suspended all of its operations to markets in the former Yugoslavia after the airline’s CEO, Michael O’Leary, said the company’s network has “collapsed” due to evolving travel restrictions across the continent. The budget airline was already operating a reduced schedule to the region, serving only Banja Luka and Podgorica in the former Yugoslavia. Ryanair has now suspended flights from Gothenburg to Banja Luka, as well as from London Stansted and Charleroi to the Montenegrin capital. Since the start of the pandemic, the carrier has not restored operations to Serbia, while it serves Croatia only on a seasonal summer basis.
Ryanair is yet to outline the resumption dates for a number of its routes in the former Yugoslavia, however, it is expected to return to all four markets at the start of the 2021 summer season on March 28. Further changes remain likely. The winter season is turning out to be even worse than expected for Europe’s airlines, despite Ryanair’s expectations that reductions would not hit profitability as the flights were anyhow lossmaking. The group’s passenger numbers in January are expected to fall to under 1.25 million, and then dip to 500.000 in February and March, the lowest since air travel all but stopped last spring.
Despite the suspension of a number of routes, Ryanair still plans to launch new services to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. On March 29 the airline intends to inaugurate flights from Vienna to Banja Luka and Pula, followed by services from Naples to Zadar on June 4. “I think the vaccine is a solution to this. Whether it will be in place by Easter is too early to call but certainly by the summer. By the time we get to the school holidays we'll see few restrictions across Europe because of the rollout of these vaccines”, Mr O’Leary said. He added, “The challenge for the airline is nobody can make a booking for two weeks out in February and March if they have to wait until they get a negative PCR test four days before departure. Bookings and air travel have collapsed”.
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