Ryanair: Budget airline says face masks will stay on flights for years to come | Travel News | Travel

The budget airline has said that face masks are likely to remain mandatory for years to come. The masks reduce transmission of Covid onboard.

Neil Sorahan, the airline’s finance chief, compared the restrictions to rules on liquids introduced after terrorist attacks two decades ago.

He said: “Masks will be something that will be with us for a while longer to come. If that is the price we have to pay for the next few months, into summer, it’s a small price to pay.

“It’s a bit like after 9/11, we ended up with our toiletries in plastic bags, maybe we’ll have to live with masks for a while longer.”

The major airline said it lost between one and a half and two million passengers due to tough travel restrictions due to the Omicron variant.

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It said it expects to make a loss of between £208million to £374million in the year up to March 2022.

Sorahan said he expected the airline to return to profitability the following year, barring any “Covid wrinkle”.

This summer, the airline plans to operate around 15 percent more flights than it did before the pandemic.

Sorahan said: “There are more Ryanair flights out of Dublin this summer than there are European flights out of Heathrow. I never thought that would happen.”

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An unnamed airline source told The Times: “We’ll almost certainly keep the same policy until it is safe to move.

“For example, the rules in the US are very clear on masks. It would be ridiculous for us to ask customers to put them on when we enter their airspace.”

Masks on planes have led to some incidents including passengers being thrown off flights for allegedly refusing to wear one.

Videos of disagreements between passengers about masks have gone viral across social media.