Ryanair cancels Portugal flights impacting holidays for almost a million passengers

12.03.2022 - 02:33 / dailyrecord.co.uk

Ryanair has been forced to cancel thousands of flights to a Portugal destination.

The budget airline has scrapped around 5,000 flights to Lisbon after being forced to scrap the number of aircrafts in the city from seven to four.

It means almost 900,000 customers this summer will be impacted by cancelled flights which could scupper holiday plans.

Some 19 routes have been affected by the cuts after the airline and Lisbon Airport got into a row about Covid restrictions.

Ryanair has apologised for the loss of flights as its CEO has issued a statement warning that the cancellations would lose “150 well-paid jobs” and impact over 900,000 thousand passengers.

Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, said: “Our latest efforts to ask Prime Minister Antonio Costa to help resulted in a total of zero responses.

“Ryanair is now forced to reduce its fleet of aircraft, from seven to four, in Lisbon this summer.”

He said it would lose more than 250 million euros (£207million) in tourism revenue for the city of Lisbon this summer.

He added: "The loss of these 19 Lisbon routes and 5000 flights this summer, means that Lisbon’s post-Covid recovery will now lag behind other major EU capital cities."

Ryanair said it would be 'committed' to returning the 19 affected routes to Lisbon in October for its winter schedule.

All passengers affected by these summer 2022 cancellations will receive email notifications later this week offering them full refunds or alternative flights to/from Lisbon for summer 2022.

Ryanair made good of its threat to cut the routes due to a dispute with Portuguese carrier TAP over unused slots at Lisbon Airport.

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