{"id":12897,"date":"2020-05-06T14:03:34","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T11:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/?p=12897"},"modified":"2020-05-06T14:03:34","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T11:03:34","slug":"coronavirus-leaving-middle-seat-empty-is-idiotic-says-ryanair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/?p=12897","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus: Leaving middle seat empty is idiotic, says Ryanair"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WTTEN-The boss of Ryanair says the airline will not resume flights if it has to keep middle seats empty to fight Covid-19, calling the idea “idiotic”.<\/h4>\n

Michael O’Leary said he was hopeful 80% of flights could resume by October if travel restrictions are eased in July.<\/h4>\n

But he said empty seats did not ensure safe social distancing and were financially unviable.<\/h4>\n

He added that if the Irish government imposed the rule, it would have to pay for the middle seat “or we won’t fly”.<\/h4>\n

Like most other big airlines, Ryanair has grounded flights as countries around Europe have imposed travel restrictions to contain the pandemic.<\/h4>\n

However, industry experts believe the rules will relaxed this summer, subject to conditions.<\/h4>\n

Emirates, easyJet and Delta in the US have all said they plan to keep middle seats empty and some think governments will make it a rule.<\/h4>\n

But Mr O’Leary told the Financial Times the idea was “idiotic” as it did not ensure a safe 2 metre distance between passengers.<\/h4>\n

“We can’t make money on 66% load factors,” he said.<\/h4>\n

He said Europe should instead follow Asia and bring in more effective measures, such as forcing people to wear masks on transport and have their temperatures checked at airports.<\/h4>\n

‘Quick recovery’<\/h4>\n

Many in the airline industry believe it could take up to three years to get back on track.<\/h4>\n

According the UN’s civil aviation body, ICAO, international air passenger traffic in the first three quarters of 2020 could drop by as many as 1.2 billion travellers, or by two-thirds.<\/h4>\n

\"WomenImage copyright<\/span>GETTY IMAGES<\/span><\/p>\n

Image caption<\/span>Socially distanced? Some big airlines plan to leave the middle seat on planes empty<\/span><\/h4>\n

But Mr O’Leary told the Financial Times he was optimistic.<\/h4>\n

He said Ryanair expects a “relatively quick recovery”, with 80% of flights having resumed by September, falling to 60% in its less busy winter season.<\/h4>\n

He added that, subject to an effective coronavirus vaccine, the airline would be carrying its “2019 traffic plus growth” by summer next year.<\/h4>\n

However, he said it was likely the airline would have to cut jobs this winter and that he would continue to take a 50% pay cut beyond May if necessary.<\/h4>\n

“My pay cut will run on until the last of [Ryanair] people are off the payroll support schemes,” he said.<\/h4>\n

Change to online offers<\/h4>\n

Meanwhile, the European Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday that Ryanair and other airlines must in future indicate the full price of a ticket when displaying offers online.<\/h4>\n

This means including the cost of value added tax on domestic flights and fees for check-in and payments by credit card.<\/h4>\n

The ruling came after an appeal by Ryanair against a decision by the Italian competition and markets authority, which said such charges were unavoidable and foreseeable, and should therefore be included in the price shown before booking<\/h4>\n

The BBC has approached the airline for comment.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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WTTEN-The boss of Ryanair says the airline will not resume flights if it has to keep middle seats empty to fight Covid-19, calling the idea “idiotic”. Michael O’Leary said he was hopeful 80% of flights could resume by October if travel restrictions are eased in July. But he said empty seats did not ensure safe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12898,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-39","category----articles-reports-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12899,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12897\/revisions\/12899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourismworld-seyaha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}