Ryanair released its revised winter schedule. Due to increased flight restrictions imposed by EU Govts, air travel to/from much of Central Europe, the UK, Ireland, Austria, Belgium and Portugal have been heavily curtailed.
This has caused forward bookings to weaken slightly in October, but materially in November & December.
In light of these weaker bookings, and Ryanair’s plan to operate with a 70% load factors, Ryanair has further reduced its winter schedule (Nov – Mar) taking capacity down from 60% to 40% of prior year.
Ryanair expects to maintain up to 65% of its winter route network, but with reduced frequencies.
In addition to the winter closure of bases in Cork, Shannon, and Toulouse, Ryanair has announced significant base aircraft cuts in Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Vienna.
With this greatly reduced winter capacity and load factors of approx. 70%, Ryanair now expects full year (FY21) traffic to fall to approx. 38m guests, although this guidance could be further revised downwards.