Temperature checks, masks and quarantine will not deter people from a holiday in the sun after three months "locked up" at home, Ryanair's chief executive Michael O'Leary said on Tuesday as he announced plans for 1,000 flights a day from July.
The Irish low-cost carrier is to make face coverings and temperature checks mandatory for all staff and passengers while the airline, Europe's largest, will scrap cash payments on board and make customers seek permission to use the toilets.
Ryanair is the latest airline to announce measures aimed at reassuring passengers during the coronavirus pandemic with rivals Air France-KLM, Lufthansa and Wizz also making masks mandatory.
"People have been locked up since the middle of March. People are really gagging to get out and I think get abroad for the sunshine," O'Leary told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"We will see a surge of bookings building over the next six weeks up to July 1," O'Leary said, although this had not begun.
O'Leary said he was urging European authorities to make both masks and temperature checks mandatory across the continent, adding that the idea of leaving the middle seats on narrow body aircraft empty to allow for social distancing was now "dead".
'OPEN SKIES'
Some in Europe's aviation industry have also been lobbying against quarantine periods being imposed across the continent.
O'Leary joined criticism of Britain's plan to make arriving passengers quarantine for 14 days, saying the fact that France and Ireland had been exempted proved it was unscientific.
"This isn't science," he said, adding that the measure was "unenforceable and unpoliceable" and would be ignored.
However, Ryanair said it will require all passengers to fill out a form detailing the length of their planned visit and where they will stay, information that will be provided to EU governments to monitor any quarantine measures.
O'Leary said he was optimistic that there would be no quarantine periods for people travelling between countries in Europe's Schengen free travel zone and he hoped that travel restrictions to and from Britain and Europe would be dropped.
"Once the industry begins to recover towards September-October, I think we will be back to essentially open skies," he said, adding that British families could happily quarantine at home for two weeks after returning from their holidays.
And if destinations like Spain or Italy introduce similar measures, travellers from Britain would simply be able to quarantine in their holiday accommodation, he said.
END TO TOILET QUEUES
Once aboard their flight, O'Leary said people would not be allowed to queue for the toilet on Ryanair planes and would have wait for permission to get up from cabin crew.
O'Leary said Ryanair had a large backlog of cancelled bookings which people had requested refunds for, but said he hoped some would opt for new flights instead when they see the airline is open for business.
Ryanair is to operate around 40% of its original flights schedule from July up from a skeleton service of around 30 flights a day in May and June, he said. Ryanair should return to its normal passenger number levels by 2021, with ticket price levels returning to normal by 2022.
O'Leary also indicated Ryanair plans to move back towards an all-Boeing fleet by cancelling leases for Airbus A320s for its Lauda subsidiary and likely replacing 30 Airbus jets at the Austrian airline with Boeing 737s.
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Escaped from lockdown in Lanzarote. Flown with RyanAir many times, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Never again. If it means I never fly again I will never fly RyanAir.1) Tue Feb 18. Flew to Lanzarote where we had rented an apartment. Plan was to return on Mar 28 on a RyanAir flight we had booked. 2) Sat Mar 14. Spain announced a "lockdown" effective Sun Mar 15. 3) Mon Mar 16. Spoke to the RyanAir desk at Arrecife airport and were told that RyanAir were closing flights effective Wed Mar 25 and that last flight out to Scotland would be Sat Mar 21. We transferred to this flight at considerable additional cost. 4) Wed Mar 18. RyanAir cancelled the Mar 21 flight late in the evening. They offered no support or advice and their Arrecife office had closed permanently. We were urgently compelled to look for an alternative airline to get us home. The only available flight at the cheapest cost was with Aer Lingus to Dublin on Sat Mar 21. 5) Fri Mar 20. Planning our transfer from Dublin to Glasgow. SkyScanner showed no available flights on the Sat evening, all were either fully booked, had been removed, or were hugely expensive. So we booked an overnight hotel stay and an early morning Sun Mar 22 flight with RyanAir. 6) Sat Mar 21. Flew Aer Lingus to Dublin. On arrival we discovered that RyanAir had reinstated their Sat night flight to Glasgow. We checked with the RyanAir desk and were told that the evening flight was overbooked but we could be put on standby for an additional cost of 240 Euros. After lengthy argument we declined and went to our hotel. 7) Sun Mar 22. At 04:00 RyanAir informed us that our early flight was cancelled, the next available flight was Sunday evening and we had been bumped to that. Our only option was to accept. This required us to extend our hotel stay by means of a late checkout, at extra cost. In the evening we flew to Glasgow. Arrived 36 hours after leaving Lanzarote. Worst airline ever.
Does O`Leary know something the rest of us don't how on earth can he say that in July airlines can fly again? All he wants is to use the CUSTOMER as a cash cow and hope that he can get as much money out of his bookings as he can then when flights are cancelled again he will start offering useless bits of paper as a refund. He is a VERY STUPID man if he thinks he knows better than the EXPERTS on COVIS 19 and when it will be SAFE to fly.DONT TOUCH RYANAIR with a barge pole. the CUSTOMER IS KING
Crikey! Don’t think flying the 737 is a winner. I would certainly not want to get on one after the crashes and the ensuing controversies at Boeing.
Like the Everly Brothers song........ Dream Dream Dream ....... Dream Dream Dream...... ON ! Then it will be £1 for a p e e ? Check out the Ryanair extras on it’s website above the normal seat prices.... breathtaking just for carrying a hand bag
So rather than aiding the European airline industry, Ryanair choses Boeing. Maybe we should cancel all Ryaniar flights and only chose airlines that fly Airbus. Anyway, I will never ever fly with Ryanair anyway, because of this O´Leary person.