It will never happen as this is just MOL claiming some media attention. Remember they believe all publicity is good publicity.

Dorking - Agreed the legal situation is a minefield.

In fact mask wearing isn't that simple either. On the ground in the UK - not enforceable but outside UK airspace that could change.
Too complex for me but this article appears to cover it quite well if anyone's interested. I should add, I am not a lawyer so can't guarantee it's accuracy but from memory it sounds about right.
Which Country's Laws Are Enforced During International Flights? - Simple Flying

Unilateral changing of contract terms is indeed naughty. However, how many passengers would really challenge Ryanair cabin crew by insisting on their rights, especially when calling the police is threatened for not wearing a mask ? Flying with FR usually involves multiple jurisdictions - it's a bit of an unknown to figure out which country's laws do or don't apply. I very much doubt that the average police officer in Europe is remotely interested in the legal niceties of what details were in the contract at the time of booking versus what is in the contract now.... most police officers at an airport will just arrest first when cabin crew claim a passenger has been disruptive, and ask questions a few hours later. Do you really want to be held under arrest for a couple of hours while your flight departs, only for the police to decide to let you go without charges ? Challenging FR through the police and courts to seek later recompense can be an awfully expensive and time consuming business

Thus, FR pretty much can insist on everyone wearing a mask whether the requirement is legally binding or not... and get away with it

Continued mask wearing will persuade some passengers to fly but with Covid cases set to double in the next 9 days and then the removal of restrictions in England, so they will double again at a faster rate, I can see Europe locking down on U.K. flights.

They have the right to prevent anyone from boarding that doesn’t conform to their rules. I’m sure you could also be offloaded into any jurisdiction on the basis of ignoring crew orders if the mask was removed.

Any business could demand masks be worn on their premises. What the anti-maskers/libertarians fail to understand is others have rights as well.

The point I was making is a legal one. Their rules, as you put it, have to be enshrined in law and for the most part the Air Navigation Act gives the crew, rightly, their authority. The particular issue with this is that the legislation, presently empowering crew, is being withdrawn and not replaced by any other overarching or specific legal instrument. That, precisely, is the legal minefield that operators are going to have to negotiate. I`m making no comments on any other aspect of this issue.

AirportPlanner1

that is correct. On private property you follow the owners rules. As long as it’s not illegal it is fine. Take smoking on board an aircraft, it wasn’t illegal for years yet many airlines chose to enforce it. It can be the same with masks.

Not all passengers are vaccinated. Not all passengers are from UK.

I suspect as Javid has predicted UK C-19 cases could soar to 100,000 a day, many countries will just stop accepting UK originating pax, vaccinated or not. Thus mask wearing for air travel from the UK is almost academic.

AirportPlanner1

I think we all need to stop thinking in extremes. "Anti-maskers" and "anti-maskers" is bundling some good honourable arguments in with the extremists. I won't be flying again until the mask mandate is removed, mainly because I won't be paying that much money to sit with a cloth covering across my face for hours on end. It's worth remember why the mask mandate remains. It is PRIMARILY a reminder and a CONTROL MECHANISM, with all the good intentions in the world, it's a noble lie. How many times have you gone out and forgotten your mask and had to go back for it? That's what it's primarily for, to keep us conscious we're in a pandemic and danger remains. If you ever want to go back to normal, and I do, then if we cannot take masks off in mid summer as hospitalisations and deaths have collapsed as the vaccine is rolled out, then there's a real chance that this panic runs to next summer, That's two and a half years.
So yeah, by all means wear a mask, but the experts were being honest in early 2020 when they said it barely makes a difference, the impetus to make people wear one was from behavioural pyschology, and it worked to some degree. The first airline that says they're no longer required will also be within their rights and I am will book with them when the time comes. If not now, then it's going to be another year of this because a lot of people will meltdown when seasonal flu / COVID hits in winter, and the media will LOVE it.

What the experts actually said is that there was not enough evidence to mandate the wearing of masks. That is not the same thing. There have been a number of papers published in the medical literature since then showing that masks are effective. Perhaps this article will help, the takeaway message is that masks do reduce you chances of contracting COVID-19 by somewhere in the region of 60-90%. Of course as the numbers increase that becomes more relevant as your chance of being exposed is higher.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8
I dont understand the hatred towards the mask myself. The country seems very keen on vaccination, which reduces the chance of contracting COVID, symptomatic illness, spreading COVID, hospitalisation and death, but is associated with some side effects. Masks also offer all of these benefits and no/very mild side effects of slight discomfort and occasional skin irritation.

It looks like airlines will require mask wearing for some time - I suspect many employers on the ground will too. So the masks wont be going anywhere for a while yet.
https://thepointsguy.co.uk/news/pax-...-post-19-july/

That is just nonsense, I'm afraid. Sure, the evidence was initially equivocal, but lots of studies suggest they do have a statistically significant impact in reducing spread, particularly in confined indoor spaces.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7497125/
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118

Ah statistically significant here just means the uplift is due to wearing one vesus not wearing one, it doesn't suggest a significant benefit to public health. My day job is explaining this to marketeers, so you're quite correct, but it's common to overstate the benefit which is, from what I have seen and read, marginal. Hence why I said the main reason to legislate to make people wear them is for visibility and public confidence. I'm not saying they don't help, they do, what I am saying the benefit is relatively small and the principal rationale for them is control. You might not agree with SAGE but this was the arguement that won the day. They were deemed essential to gain compliance in other areas, hence this will never end, while masks are worn, and there's quite a lot of scientists keen to ensure we keep wearing them to tackle flu. It's up to you (from the 19th)!

Could we possibly keep this topic vaguely connected to Ryanair, and perhaps move the question of the general usefulness (or not) of masks in a pandemic to JetBlast please ?

brian_dromey

That's absolutely not what the paper is saying, to reiterate, the wearing of a mask will not stop you catching COVID 19, mask wearing is to catch expelled aerosol spray to prevent you spreading it to anyone else. This has been made clear time and time again, and the benefit attached, the supporting number to go alongside that assertion is unclear and IMHO marginal. It's intentionally vague.
And to reiterate, to suggest that wearing a mask reduces the chances of catching COVID by 60-90% is flat out wrong, that's cleverly implied, but that's not actually what they say. One for JetBlast before we go wildly off topic?

You are quite right, the risk of secondary transmission was reduced by 79% when the positive case wore a mask AND all the individuals in the house also wore a mask prior to the onset of symptoms, so teasing that apart is impossible. What we really did not understand in the early days was the effect of asymptomatic spread on case numbers, this study seems to suggest that masks are effective in preventing transmission when the index case is infective, but does not have symptoms.
I think mask wearing has become so highly politicised, especially in the US but also in some political viewpoints in the UK, that there is little point arguing. I wont harp on any further but it is really important to bear in mind how COVID spreads, this is a respiratory virus that largely does not spread by contaminated surfaces. We argue about wearing masks while we consume huge quantities of anti-viral wipes and cleaning products.

At the end of the day it is up to Ryanair to decide what rules, conditions or other terms passengers need to comply with to board their aircraft, over and above any legal requirements. Their website makes it very clear (far clearer than many of their other T&C's!) that a mask is mandatory while on board a Ryanair aircraft and they are clear they have no plans to change it. At least they are being up front and clear with passengers what to expect. You can't say farer than that.

4 new routes from Malaga

Aarhus
Beauvais
Kaunas
Lanzarote

All begins November 2021

Not sure if mentioned elsewhere, (Ryanair’s) first B737 MAX 8-200 in full MALTA AIR colours arrived in DUB from over the pond on the 14/07/21. Flightradar24 has a pic when you search registration 9H-VUE, I’m really loving the tail graphics.

I'm trying to make up my mind if passengers on Ryanair flights don't care or know what aircraft they are flying on, or they just don't care, because the price is right, right? No doubt about that. But I find it interesting now that the MAX is cleared again for commercial operations in Europe, that nobody flying Ryanair seems to worry that it had a significant safety issue. So either everyone accepts its been fixed or they just don't care. I wonder what the real reason is. Or is MOL just quoting very early experience with his new MAX-200 only a few weeks into service is it?

https://simpleflying.com/ryanair-no-737-max-avoidance/

Majority of the "normal" pax who have no aviation background / interest do not know what aircraft they flying on when they either book and fly. So no.. but besides Ryanair multiple airlines in and flying to Europe have taken the MAX back in service, TUI, NEOS, ENTER AIR, Corendon, Icelandair, Smartwings, Turkish, FlyDubai.

I am really looking forward to my first MAX flight or as Ryanir calls it now.. the 737-8200 :)

Isnt that an official Boeing designator for that FR specified subtype?

or maybe they trust the regulator has done due diligence and accepted that the issues are resolved? Unless you know better? Are you aware that almost every aircraft has had significant safety issues at some point in its history... off the top of my head, 787 battery, 737 rudder hard over, DC10 and the 320 didn’t get called the john Wayne jet for nothing..

It would appear that Ryanair have not amended the seat maps on their booking engine for 737 MAX/ (-8200), i.e. they have the same map as 738, routes up to 33. Clearly it could be argued in current climate that they won't fill many of the flights (separate debate clearly).

Does anybody know exactly what flights are planned to be operated by this be plane. Easy to see after the event but if anybody knows, I'd be glad to hear. Thanks.

I thought they had an extra row of legroom seats due to the additional exits? Surely Ryanair being Ryanair would want to cash in on this?

Indeed.. I took a screenshot back in 2019 when the 737 MAX was loaded in the Ryanair system.

On the -8200 the following seats are extra legroom: 1B-C, 2A, 17A-F, 18A-F, 28B-E, 29A, 29F (21 seats)
On the -800 it's: 1A-C, 2D-F, 16A-F, 17A-F (18 seats)

4 new routes from Liverpool

Beauvais
Bergamo
Sibiu
Tallinn

All begins november 2021

11 new routes from Manchester

Bucharest
Kaunas
Knock
Paphos
Poznan
Salzburg
Santander
Santorini
Suceava
Verona
Zagreb

MME-CFU announced.

EDIT: apparently this was announced in April.

Lots of new routes being announced, but still no flights from EMA after December on sale (except the odd Dublin). Are they closing the base?

new routes from Zagreb

All begins december 2021

Basel
Dublin
Eindhoven
Malaga
Malta
Manchester
Naples
Paphos
Thessaloniki

I wonder will they stay at BHD over the winter or up sticks up the road to BFS.

3rd based a/c at ZAG
https://corporate.ryanair.com/news/r...ule/?market=hr

8th aircraft for MXP
https://corporate.ryanair.com/novita...nsa/?market=it

5th aircraft for NAP
https://corporate.ryanair.com/novita...oli/?market=it

Earlier this year, a Ryanair flight had some rather serious problems while flying over Belarus with 2 pax ending up in jail. Much of Europe (including the UK) has recommended against flying passengers over Belarus for the time being
I've just noticed a Ryanair UK flight from Kyiv to Stansted (RK3678, G-RUKB) seems to fly over a corner of Belarus today at approx 1150 GMT / UTC, based on FR24. I know it's not a major corner... but FR24 still shows flying over Belarus sovereign territory. Yes, I know FR24 sometimes interpolates a bit when there are gaps in coverage and it cannot be relied on 100%... but Europe should have good coverage. A 737 doesn't have the fine grained control of a fighter jet... and thus one would presumably want to leave a gap of a few miles from Belarus territory as some sort of "keep away from trouble" margin

Anyone have thoughts ?

The CAA “requested” that UK registered airliners avoid overflying Belarus. I don’t know how much weight that carries or what penalty could be applied. Anyway Ryanair should not be doing it and providing any support whatsoever to Belarus.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/202...annon-airport/

New routes froim Lisbon
All begins between 31/10 and 02/11

Agadir
Alghero
Alicante
Barcelona
Bari
Billund
Birmingham
Bournemouth
Brest
Fez
Lanzarote
Madrid
Malta
Marrakesh
Oujda
Palermo
Perpignan
Tenerife-South
Tours
Wroclaw

NCL - Newcastle

now a base with 2 aircraft from March 2022 with a total of 19 routes

When is summer 2022 likely to be substantially complete in being loaded for sale on the FR website, at least for dates up to maybe 30-June-2022 ? I'm aware that some of S22 seems to be on sale, but there are still some big gaps that I would expect to be filled by March. I don't want to get into the "when can I book a holiday to XXX" debate - I'm much more interested in analysing the network, and particularly seeing what routes are being dropped.
Yes, I know that Covid doesn't make things easy, and it's anyone's guess as to what travel will or won't be possible for next spring, but every airline is in the same position, and if tickets are not on sale, there's no revenue coming in

I thought Mr O'Leary might have come up with a PCR price smasher by now as the test are what are holding back most people I know.