As countries across Europe, including the UK, ease their coronavirus lockdowns Liverpool John Lennon Airport is seeing Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz air resume their services. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool John Lennon Airport (LJLA) will see a big resumption in flights in July with Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz Air all increasing their services.
European commercial aviation all but shut down in March and April as countries across the continent, including the UK, introduced lockdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, since May, there has been a gradual easing of lockdown restrictions and a number of airline are resuming services in July and August. The number of weekly departures out of LJLA will increase to 120 this month.
July will see flights to an additional 29 European destinations operate from Liverpool. Irish carrier Ryanair began its latest wave of departures on Wednesday and is adding 25 more destinations to its Liverpool July schedule.
It’s big low-cost rival easyJet will resume flights to four more destinations from Liverpool in July and Wizz Air will add three more. Many more services are due to restart from LJLA in August, too.
However, the airport continues to urge all passengers to play their part in minimising the health risks. These means maintaining social distancing, washing or sanitising hands regularly and wearing face coverings.
The pandemic has had a devastating effect on the aviation sector. Ryanair said it may need to cut up to 3,000 jobs although it has said it can reduce this number if staff agree to 20% pay cuts.
On Tuesday, easyJet said it was cutting 4,500 jobs and would close its bases at Newcastle, Stansted and Southend as it battled with a huge loss of income as a result of the COVID lockdowns.
And the woes of commercial carriers has had a significant knock-on effect at planemaker Airbus, which on Tuesday announced 15,000 worldwide job losses, with 1,700 people going from its wing-making factories in Bristol and at Broughton in Deeside where around 6,000 people are currently employ.
Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury said the company was facing “the gravest crisis this industry has ever experienced”.