• Ryanair Boeing 737
    Ryanair
    IATA/ICAO Code:
    FR/RYR
    Airline Type:
    Low-Cost Carrier
    Hub(s):
    Dublin Airport, London Stansted Airport, Milan Bergamo Airport
    Year Founded:
    1985
    Airline Group:
    Ryanair Group
    CEO:
    Eddie Wilson
    Country:
    Ireland

With Europe's and the UK's airline industry mired in crisis and bereft of solutions, Ryanair has stepped in to offer canceled passengers a way to get home.

On Monday, Ryanair announced it was launching 200 rescue flights on its routes from 19 UK airports to Europe. The airline said its goal was to facilitate the return home of families "whose flights are being canceled by British Airways, easyJet and TUI Airways." Ryanair is one of the few airlines using 100% of its fleet, with ch-aviation.com data showing it has 235 Boeing 737-800s, 32 737-MAX 8s, and one 737-700 on the active service list. The same data reveals that 167 B737-800s, 40 737 MAX 8, and 29 Airbus A320-200s are wet-leased. Overall, Ryanair has 504 aircraft at its disposal and 138 737 MAX 8s on order.

Ryanair to the rescue but get in quick

Ryanair, Boeing 737 MAX, Refunds
Ryanair has a fleet of 268 Boeing 737 family aircraft, with 138 B737 MAX 8 on order. Photo: Getty Images

Ryanair Director of Marketing, Communications, and Digital, Dara Brady, said that UK families can now rest easy in the knowledge that Ryanair will fly them to/from their summer holiday destinations to enjoy some well-deserved time off with friends and family. He added:

"While BA, easyJet and TUI cancel thousands of flights across the UK, causing travel disruption for UK families, Ryanair continues to operate a full schedule with over 15,000 weekly flights, and today we have added over 200 extra flights from/to our 19 UK airports, to help the BA, easyJet and TUI customers who have been disrupted by these cancelations."

Ryanair says the low-fare rescue flights are already available on their website and are for travel until the end of September. However, they must be booked by midnight on Thursday, June 23. The announcement listed six city pairs as samples of the rescue flights:

  • Birmingham-Lanzarote
  • Bristol-Ibiza
  • Edinburgh-Gran Canaria
  • Glasgow-Malaga
  • Manchester-Malta
  • Stansted-Alicante

Is Ryanair the rescue fare specialist?

Ryanair has a template ready when it comes to announcing rescue flights. In June 2020, it offered £9.99 ($12.25) flights, labeled as rescue fares from London Southend to Vilnius, Lithuania, when Wizz Air discontinued the route. Similar to the current flights, the special rescue fares were only available for three days. When Flybe collapsed in March 2020, Ryanair again launched rescue fares on selected routes formerly operated by Flybe. Fares started from £17.28 ($21) on five routes: Liverpool-Knock, Bournemouth-Dublin, Belfast-London Stansted, Bristol-Dublin, and Belfast-Manchester.

In July 2017, Irish carrier Aer Lingus canceled holiday flights to and from Belfast City Airport. The flights were scheduled to end in late September, but poor seat sales pushed Aer Lingus to stop the service at the end of August. Reports from the time chronicle a litany of customer complaints, such as the one from a family traveling with two infants whose Aer Lingus return flight from Alicante was canceled. They said: "They offered to fly us home to Dublin, but it arrives at 1.30 am, and there are no buses to get us home to Belfast." Unsurprisingly, Ryanair jumped in with rescue fares on its Belfast-Alicante route to accommodate customers affected by Aer Lingus' cancellations.

Wizz Air RyanAir EasyJet Getty Images
Ryanair is at the ready when its competitors cancel flights and leave customers stranded. Photo: Getty Images

Going further back to October 2016, Ryanair introduced £9.99 rescue fares after Aer Lingus decided to drop flights from Liverpool to Dublin. Aer Lingus had commenced the Liverpool-Dublin route in April 2020, prompting a Ryanair executive to quip that "Customers should book quickly as, just like the Aer Lingus' service, they'll be gone soon." Ryanair is known to protect its routes fiercely, and it's easy to think that the rescue fares only came after some heavily discounted pricing that pushed Aer Lingus to abandon the service.

That's six years of Ryanair offering to rescue passengers when their competitors can't deliver the service. It's up to affected passengers to say if Ryanair is a knight in shining armor or an opportunistic wolf in sheep's clothing. What do you think?

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