Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has urged Brits desperate for a summer holiday in the sun to ignore pessimistic government officials, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and go ahead and book a foreign vacation in Europe.
In recent days and weeks, ministers and senior government advisors have repeatedly advised Brits to put off booking a summer holiday abroad over fears that mutant Coronavirus variants might derail plans to lift a ban on non-essential foreign travel.
The government doesn’t intend to ease current restrictions until May 17 at the earliest, although a travel task force is set to publish a report on the issue by April 12. On Tuesday, Boris Johnson refused to speculate what the task force might report but said he would reveal more details on April 5.
A current ban on overseas holidays will be extended until July and travellers will soon have to prove their trip is ‘essential’ or face being slapped with a £5,000 fine.
Last week, Mike Tildesley, a prominent infectious diseases scientist who advises the government said it was “extremely unlikely” that most Brits would be allowed to go on an overseas holiday this year despite many countries laying out plans to welcome British holidaymakers whether they’ve been vaccinated or not.
Other senior officials have voiced similar concerns including England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty who has allegedly put pressure on ministers to introduce even tougher border controls for the foreseeable future.
O’Leary told a news conference on Wednesday that he wasn’t bothered by the current rhetoric. “I don’t frankly pay too much attention to it,” O’Leary commented. “It is very difficult to persuade the UK population to sit at home, or holiday at home, when everybody’s been vaccinated,” he continued.
“If you’re fully vaccinated, I’d be very surprised if there was any legal basis for the UK government preventing people travelling on holidays to other European countries,” O’Leary said as he set out plans for Ryanair to operate up to 80 per cent of its pre-pandemic schedule this summer.
The airline said it planned to operate 2,300 flights to and from the UK alone across as many as 480 routes.
O’Leary cited the UK government’s successful vaccination programme as reason to be optimistic but a sluggish rollout in Europe could delay a return to international non-essential travel.
Ryanair has seen a surge in bookings from consumers in the UK, as well as in Germany and Spain but shares in airlines and travel companies have plummeted in recent days over fears that yet another summer might be lost to Coronavirus travel restrictions.
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