Flights to and from Ukraine might not be able to resume until “next winter”, Michael O’Leary has predicted.
The Ryanair CEO pledged that the low-cost carrier would be “the first airline to return to flying to Ukraine”, but said Russia’s destruction of radar and flight systems at major Ukrainian airports means the process could be slow.
“We will be the first airline to return to flying to Ukraine when it is safe to do so – when we’re allowed by the European safety agencies to do so. But I suspect it will take probably this summer – and maybe into next winter – before those technologies can be restored at the Ukrainian airports, when the Ukrainians will hopefully have seen off the Russians and sent them back to where they came from,” he said at a press conference.
According to Mr O’Leary, Ryanair is the largest airline flying to and from Ukraine, usually operating services to four cities: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and Lviv.
The airline has cancelled all Ukrainian routes until the end of March following Russia’s invasion of the country last week.
“We’ve had to close those because the skies were closed last Thursday morning,” said Mr O’Leary.
“We expected to carry around 2 million passengers this year to Ukraine. We will pivot all of those aircraft away from Ukraine for the foreseeable future.”
Mr O’Leary added that Ryanair “wants to see the Ukrainians succeed”, and said the carrier is taking medical and humanitarian supplies as cargo in jets flying into airports in Poland, to help with the crisis.
He called for world leaders such as Boris Johnson and Joe Biden to put pressure on Russia to extract its troops from Ukraine by driving down the price of its oil.
“The most important sanction we could make on Russia is to drive up the supply of oil and push down the price.
“Putin is making off with $95-100 (£71-75) a barrel – if I was Boris or Biden I’d be talking to Opec (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and saying, ‘Turn on the taps’.
“If you really want to impact the Russian economy, drive down the price of oil to $45-50 a barrel.”
