Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 08:26:10 on Thu, 4 Feb 2021,
Recliner remarked:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...lans-axe-domes
tic-routes/

Ryanair's spat with the Civil Aviation Authority escalated on Wednesday
night as plans emerged to axe all domestic routes and all services from
Britain to non-EU countries.

The budget carrier will only operate out of London Stansted airport and
will cull 13 routes to Morocco, Ukraine, Montenegro, and Norway.

A row erupted in December between Ryanair and the CAA over pre-Brexit rule
changes. At the centre of the dispute is Ryanair’s use of so-called
“wet-leasing”, where airlines hire aircraft and crew to operate services on
their behalf.

Ryanair only has one UK-registered aircraft. The CAA wanted less than half
of Ryanair’s UK services to be run by “wet leased” aircraft.

Ryanair is believed to have planned to increase its number of UK registered
aircraft to three by April 2021 and offered a pool of aircraft under a
“white list” approach. This was rejected by the CAA on Jan 22, according to
industry sources.

Ryanair and CAA did not comment on Wednesday night.

The CAA’s Paul Smith said at the time: “A UK airline with a significant
presence in the UK, should not rely heavily on using wet-leased,
foreign-registered aircraft.”

Is the wet-leasing something to do with delays in delivery of 737Max, of
which they've reportedly got 210 on order?

I suspect FR-UK is wet-leasing 738s from FR-Ireland. The CAA wants at least
half of FR-UK's non-EU flights to be on UK-registered planes. I don't think
it's anything to do with 737 MAX delays, as FR has plenty of 738s, more
than enough to meet current demand.


Meanwhile, is this actually a symptom of a rift in the Open Skies
arrangements, because what they are left with is *all* flights having at
least one end in the EU, and no 3rd-country to 3rd-country flights?

I'm not sure that EU airlines are still free to fly from the UK to non-EU
countries. Of course, an Irish airline is still able to fly from the UK to
any of the 27 EU countries.


[Ryanair's website is still offering flights to the listed countries,
though, eg Oslo £14.99 in October; but nothing internal - I must have
missed them scrapping those]

Maybe they were suspended due to lack of demand during the lockdown?