Airlines reveal scale of reductions in passenger numbers
Budget carrier Ryanair reported a 99.6% fall in passenger numbers for April, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the resultant closure of international borders.
The airline, which operates 46 routes out of Manchester Airport and 34 from Liverpool John Lennon Airport, flew just 40,000 passengers during the month, compared with 13.5m in the same month last year.
It said it operated 600 scheduled flights in April, including a number of rescue and medical flights on behalf of various EU governments, of which 99% arrived on time.
Due to multiple EU government flight bans and restrictions, Ryanair expects to carry minimal traffic during the months of May and June, as well, it said.
Its rolling annual total of passengers carried fell to 135.1m, compared with 144.3m in April 2019, a six per cent fall.
Last week the airline warned that it would need to axe 3,000 jobs due to the grounding of of its fleet following the coronavirus outbreak.
Wizz Air, another budget carrier which announced it was cutting 1,000 jobs – 19% of its workforce – last month, also announced passenger statistics for April today which revealed a 97.6% fall in numbers.
The airline, which operates routes out of Liverpool John Lennon Airport, 78,389 passengers last month, compared with 3.289 million in April last year.
Its rolling 12 month passenger volume showed a five per cent increase, having carried 36,828,040 customers in the year to April 2020, compared with 35,090,840 in the year to April 2019.
It said that, in addition to the regular passenger traffic last month, it had operated 71 cargo flights with medical equipment as well as 28 rescue flights since the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The carrier resumed operations from its bases in London Luton and Vienna on May 1, with flights to selected destinations.
And it has announced the opening of a new base in Lviv, Ukraine from July 1, with one based aircraft and five new destinations, as well as two additional services from Kharkiv.
