Ryanair, the dominant low-cost European airline, and long noted for taking provocative stands on nearly everything has tossed another firecracker into the crowd, threatening to shut down routes to cities where passengers arriving in the UK are subject to a mandatory hotel quarantine.
The airline’s CEO Eddie Wilson told the Sunday Irish Independent that it’s unwilling to keep flying ’empty’ planes on routes that passengers are avoiding because of the mandatory quarantine in a designated hotel, which can cost as much as €2,000. Cities where the airline is threatening to drop service include Rome, Paris, Brussels and Vienna.
Wilson attacked the quarantine system as a “PR stunt,” saying “That is the scandal here. The Department of Health has put in a quarantine system that doesn’t work.” He pointed out that because inter-European borders, as well as the land border with Ireland are open, passengers can just take a train to a different city and fly home without quarantine.
