Ryanair has warned the Government that the aviation sector faces "many thousands of job losses" unless it addresses the collapse of air travel by implementing the recommendations of Aviation Task Force published earlier this summer.
The airline called on the Minister for Climate Action, Communications Networks and Transport Eamon Ryan to explain why the Government had failed to act on any of the 14 recommendations of the Aviation Task Force since its publication on 7 July.
"Unless there is immediate action from Minister Ryan, then over 140,000 jobs in Irish aviation and over 325,000 jobs in Irish tourism, face a bleak winter with the threat of many thousands of job losses," the company warned.
Following the collapse in air travel triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Aviation Task Force was commissioned to make recommendations to help the sector to recover, but Ryanair noted that two months later, nothing had happened "and the action plan is gathering dust".
The airline blamed the Government's failure to implement the task force recommendations for further cuts in capacity and connectivity to and from Ireland this winter.
It noted that Ryanair has slashed capacity for September and October by a further 20%, while Aer Lingus has reduced its transatlantic capacity, resulting in threats to bases in Cork and Shannon.
"While Minister Ryan fiddles, Irish aviation burns," said the airline.
Ryanair also called on the Government to update the Green List of countries permitted for foreign travel to include countries such as Germany, the UK, Denmark and Poland.
It argued that while each of these countries had significantly lower Covid-19 case rates than Ireland, Irish citizens could not travel there to do business without a 14-day quarantine.
Ryanair compared yesterday's 14-day Covid case rates in Ireland (31.1) with Poland (26.5), the UK (24.9) Germany (21.6) and Denmark (21.2).
It also cited the rate in Italy (25.3), which is on the Green List.
It accused the Government of mismanaging Ireland's recovery by keeping the island economy "uniquely closed for business", despite the fact that many EU states had permitted the safe return of intra-EU air travel since 1 July.
"It is inexcusable that connectivity from Ireland to our largest EU trading partners in the UK and Germany, has been cut off by Government and the National Public Health Emergency Team's mismanagement of Ireland's Green List, with a useless, defective, and non-scientific 14 day quarantine still keeping Ireland 'closed for business'," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson noted that now that schools have reopened, and with an unemployment rate of 17%, it was time for Irish businesses to return to work, but that the economy could not recover unless people were free to travel to key EU trading partners with lower Covid rates than in Ireland.
"If Micheál Martin can travel to Brussels and return without quarantine, why can't other essential business travel take place from 1st September to these EU countries, without NPHET's failed defective mismanaged quarantine?" said the spokesperson.
Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson has called on the Government to add countries with a lower 14 day incidence rate per 100,000 than Ireland, like Germany and the UK, to its Green List.
Speaking on RTÉ's Prime Time, Mr Wilson said Minister Ryan had the report from the Taskforce for Aviation Recovery for two weeks and described it as "inexplicable" that the minister had not acted on it.
Mr Wilson said that Ireland had deviated from the approach adopted by the European Commission on travel within the EU and said there was "no scientific basis" for its decision to do so.
He described it as "inevitable" that when people start moving again that cases would go up, however he said that we are "going to have to learn to live" with Covid-19.
"The good news is people are not dying from it. The cases in relation to hospitalisation, they're the numbers we should be looking at," Mr Wilson said.
He added that it was not just impacting Ryanair, citing "rumours" that Aer Lingus was looking at pulling out of Shannon and Cork airports and are planning to move some of its transatlantic flights to UK.
Mr Wilson denied that Ryanair had played down the virus and said it was "first out" on facemasks.
"The Government is saying we are closed for business, we have to open up at some stage," he said.
Additional reporting Laura Fletcher
