Alex Trelinski
LOW-COST carrier Ryanair is to run 2,500 weekly flights to and from Spain as well as within the country over the summer.
Ryanair marketing director, Dara Brady said: “We are planning to operate 582 new international and domestic routes involving Spain, which include 48 new ones, in anticipation of an expected increased demand for trips”.
The budget operator is banking that mass vaccination programmes will increase still further within the European Union in time for a busier summer season than last year which was badly hit by the pandemic.
They are also hoping that their UK holidaymakers will be able to travel.
That’s despite warnings from government ministers that it was too soon to book a foreign summer holiday amidst fears of more virulent strains being brought back home and international travel restrictions not being lifted.
“We’re seeing an increase in capacity versus what we would’ve seen last year. Our domestic Spanish schedule is around 20% bigger than in previous years, and certainly bigger than last year,” Dara Brady added.
Brady commented that the European vaccination programme would allow them to have a ‘decent’ summer.
Over the recent request from Germany for airlines to arrange coronavirus tests for tourists returning from the Balearic Islands, Brady said Ryanair would observe all government laws but it should not the ‘responsibility of carriers’ to organise COVID tests.
