How COVID affected Ireland airline industry

Kiku Nakajima 

Third year

CONTENT PAGE

Words

Sustainable development goals 

My project is related to the 8th one of the sustainable development goals which is decent work and economic growth. It is related as my project is based on how the economic growth and industry growth declined due to the world pandemic, COVID-19. It explains how it impacted Irish airline industry, their loss and what Irish airline industry did to get back on track.  

Introduction

For my project I decided to do a topic called how COVID affected Ireland airline industry. I chose this topic as I found this topic so interesting to find out how COVID affected the Ireland airline after the pandemic hit and so many people stopped traveling because of COVID and I wanted to see how the airline industry were coping in difficult times.

• Dr. Marina Eftymiou said that airlines experienced a 60% drop in passenger numbers during 2020. Airlines carried 2,699 million fewer passenger in 2019 to 2020 which resulted in $371 billion loss in gross passenger revenue. Seats offered fell by 50% in 2020. Although the plane was empty, they still had to fly the airplane, but the European Commission changed the regulation on economic as well as environment ground which allowed to stop flying empty airplanes because of the rule "use it or lose it" which meant that they can't keep on flying empty airplanes as it will just waste fuels and money for the airline industry.

EFFECT ON AIRLINE INDUSTRIES

Ryanair 

• To start off, Ryanair closed its aircraft base at Shannon airport in October 2021 and announced in early November that it would cease all flights at Shannon airport, given the collapse in forward bookings. Ryanair resumed a limited and disrupted schedule, due to COVID-19 restrictions, to three UK and European destinations on 17th of December 2021 for the Christmas holiday period and these services ended on 10th of January. Ryanair holdings reported a full year loss of €815 million compared to 2020 profit of €1002m features of FY21 included.

Ryanair

Ryanair

• Overall, how Ryanair coped with covid and how they are getting back on track:
• A collapse in air travel and once-off charges left Ryanair Holdings with a €410 million loss in the six months ended September 30th, 2021.
• Ryanair lost €197 million in the first half, but a €227 million charge for fuel hedging and €5.9 million in finance costs left the group with total losses for the six-month period of €410.5 million.
• Ryanair Holdings earned a €1.15 billion profit during the same six months in 2021.
• Covid-19 grounded 99 per cent of its fleet from mid-March to the end of June in 2021 as Europe’s governments banned air travel to contain the virus.
• Consequently, the airline earned most of its revenues in the second quarter, from the end of June to the end of September, during which it operated at around 60 per cent of the 2021's capacity.
• Ryanair Holdings recently said that it expected to carry 38 million passengers during 2022

​

​

Interview

Interview

• Interview:
• Answers 
• There were so many airlines that got affected and so many airlines shut down completely but one of the most affected airline would be air Lingus and Ryanair. As air Lingus and Ryanair are a huge Ireland airline industry and probably one of the most famous airline, they had a massive impact and so many employees such as flight attendant and pilots lost their job. The Ireland industry kept flying empty airplanes, but the more they keep flying empty planes the costing of the oil and other resources which is used to fly an airplane increased and as there are no passengers aboard,  they kept on losing money. 

Interview

They finally stopped flying empty airplanes which had a massive impact but in a good way this time and it decreased the airline industry to lose money as they didn't spend money for oil and other resources to fly empty planes and only flew when there actually were passengers aboard. 

Ryanair

Impact of covid 

FY21 was the most challenging in Ryanair’s 35-year history.  Covid-19 saw traffic collapse, almost overnight, from 149m to just 27.5m as many European Govts. (With little notice or co-ordination) charged flight bans, travel restrictions and national lockdowns. There was an unfinished recovery during summer 2020, as initial lockdowns eased, however a second Covid-19 wave in Europe followed quickly in the fall with a third wave in spring.  This created enormous disruptions and uncertainty for both our customers and our people, as they suffered constantly changing Govt. guidelines, travel bans and restrictions.  Ryanair responded promptly, and effectively, to this crisis, by working hard to assist millions of customers with flight changes, refunds and changed travel plans. They minimized job losses through agreed pay cuts and participation in Govt. job support schemes, while at the same time keeping our pilots, cabin crew and aircraft current and ready to resume service once normality returns.

​

​

survey

• I did a survey on google forms and I sent it to 36 people which was my family and my friends, and I got 36 responses in total. In the survey I asked about the experience of flying in airplanes Durning this pandemic. And these were the replies. 
• And overall, it proved that travelling abroad on an airplane is difficult and unsafe due to covid. And most of the people has not been travelling a lot since the pandemic. 

survey

• In the survey I asked if they feel safe travelling abroad on an airplane and it was surprisingly almost all equal, but the answer no and sometimes was the most popular answer I got, which proves that most of the people doesn't feel safe travelling abroad on an airplane due to covid. I asked the reason why it is now more difficult to travel on an airplane and they said that it's because of the masks and the PCR tests that they must take before going to another country. They also said that the document they have to write, and the paperwork is one of the negative things you must do before travelling.

SOURCES 

• Field research:
• Interview – my dad 
• Survey – 36 responses 
• Desk research:
• Ryanair.com
• Airlingus.com
• TheIrishtimes.com
• Dublinairport.com
• Oireachtas.ie

​

​

Analysis and conclusion 

Evaluation 

• Overall covid has had a massive impact on the Ireland airline industry and the impact was mostly bad impacts such as they lost many passengers which led them to lose a lot of money and as they were not earning enough money the employees such as pilots and flight attendants lost their job, they had no job and other airplane industry were not able to employ anymore employees as they were also struggling to pay the wage of the pilots and flight attendants. 

Summary

I worked on a project called how COVID affected the Irish airline industry. It explains all the negative and positive impact the Irish airline industry experienced due to the world pandemic COVID-19. The main Irish airline industry that I focused on was Ryanair. I included the main events that occurred within the Ryanair industry during hard times for the economy and the industry to grow and maintain, the losses they experienced and the solution to how they got back on track. I did a field research and desk research. For the field research, I interviewed my dad as he works in the airline industry company. I also took survey from 35 people on the difficulties they faced when travelling when the travel restrictions lifted.