Irish budget airline Ryanair (FR/RYR) has welcomed travel safety advice from the European Union which will see passengers being able to resume travel within the EU in the next few weeks.
Under the EU guidelines, airlines and airports must ensure that passengers keep a distance of 1.5 metres from each other wherever its possible to do so and when that isn’t feasible then it should make sure that extra measures such as hand sanitising gel and face masks should be used.
Ryanair’s Group CEO Michael O’Leary said: “We welcome the European Union’s recommendation on face masks, and call again on the Irish and UK Government to abandon their unexplainable, ineffective, and unimplementable quarantine restrictions. Europe’s citizens can travel safely on their summer holidays wearing face masks and observing temperature protocols, but 14-day quarantines have no scientific basis, are unimplementable and unnecessary in circumstances where airline, train and underground passengers wear face masks where social distancing isn’t possible.”
The airline is critical though of the Irish and UK Governments requirement for passengers arriving into the UK to quarantine for 14 days and called for the measure to be scrapped.
O’Leary said: “14-day quarantines are ineffective and unimplementable. Requiring international arrivals to quarantine only after they have used multiple public transport providers to get from the airport to their ultimate destination has no basis in science or medicine. We strongly urge Europe’s Governments, especially those in Ireland and the UK, to mandate to the wearing of face masks for airline, train and (London) underground passengers, as this is the best and most effective way to limit the spread of Covid-19 in public transport environments where social distancing is not possible.”
Like most airlines Ryanair is slowly restarting its network and hopes to get around 40% of its flights up and running in July.