Ryanair cancels 19 Lisbon routes for this summer
The company justifies its decision on the grounds that the government has not released the slots that TAP cannot use at Lisbon airport.
Ryanair will cancel 19 routes in Lisbon for this summer, justifying this decision with the fact that the Portuguese government has not released the slots that TAP will not use at Humberto Delgado airport. The Irish airline has warned the Executive several times these cancellations would happen if no action was taken. The decision affects around 5,000 flights and 150 jobs.
The routes Ryanair says it has been “forced” to cancel are: Agadir, Alghero, Alicante, Bari, Billund, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Baden-Baden, Lanzarote, Madrid, Malta, Memmingen, Oujda, Palermo, Perpignan, Poitiers, Tenerife, Krakow and Zaragoza. “The three aircraft and 19 routes will return to Lisbon in October for the winter schedule,” when there will be “sufficient slots”.
“These cancellations – which could be avoided – come after many attempts by Ryanair to ask the Portuguese government to intervene in the release of the slots unused by TAP in summer 2022,” the company said in a statement released on Tuesday. “TAP received €3 billion in state aid, reduced its fleet by 20%, ended thousands of jobs and still released only less than 5% of its slots in Lisbon, thus blocking the growth of other airlines.”
“Our latest efforts to ask prime minister António Costa for 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,” says Michael O’Leary, also pointing to the “loss of 150 well-paid jobs”, “over 900,000 passengers” and “more than €250 million in tourism revenue” for Lisbon this summer.
“We regret this unnecessary inconvenience for all passengers on these cancelled flights and the loss of 19 routes due to TAP blocking unused slots in the summer of 2022 in Lisbon,” the company’s CEO says.
Ryanair says that all passengers affected by these cancellations will be notified until the end of this week, with the possibility of requesting a refund or rebooking alternative flights.
