Ryanair has announced today (Monday 30 March) that it will be extending its limited flight schedule until Thursday 9 April.

In a statement, the British low-cost carrier stated: “As most EU countries have imposed flight bans or other restrictions, more than 90 per cent of Ryanair’s aircraft have been grounded for the coming weeks.

“We are working with EU Governments to try to keep some minimum flight links open for emergency reasons, even though the passenger loads on these flights will be very low.

“We are today (Mon 30 Mar) extending this limited schedule by a week to Thursday 9 April.

“All these aircraft are disinfected daily. With low loads, social distancing will be optimised on-board and we ask all passengers to cooperate fully with our crews who are doing their best in difficult times to maintain vital links to/from Ireland and to/from the UK to facilitate our passengers and their families to deal with emergencies that may require urgent travel over the coming days and weeks.”

The airline added: “Ryanair apologises sincerely for the unprecedented grounding of our aircraft fleet, and any schedule disruptions this may have caused, but we must all work together with EU Governments to minimise the impact of Covid-19 on our citizens and our health services.”

While the majority of Ryanair’s fleet has been grounded due to the coronavirus outbreak, the airline has followed in the footsteps of many other airlines by offering its aircraft to governments both for rescue flights and in Ryanair’s case, “to operate essential flights for the movement of vital medicines, personal protective equipment, and if necessary, emergency food supplies”.

Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air announced on Friday that it had delivered 11 tons of coronavirus medical equipment, including protective gear and test kits, from Shanghai to Budapest on Monday, following a request from the Hungarian Government.

Ryanair will operate these flights daily or weekly. All details can be found on the Ryanair website.