On Saturday, Ryanair, the largest airline operating direct scheduled flights from Bratislava, resumed its flights from M.R. Štefánik Airport almost four months after the ban on civil flights was issued as a part of measures aimed at halting coronavirus spread. Passengers flew to Burgas in Bulgaria and to Paphos in Cyprus. The airport's general manager Jozef Pojedinec said that the airline had reduced the number of flights within its Europe-wide network to some 40% this summer. While Ryanair offered 26 regular lines from Bratislava last year, this year it plans to resume only 12 of them. However, four of them include destinations in Great Britain where the ban on civil flights is still in effect," he said. The first flights on resumed lines to destinations in Greece, Ireland, Spain and Italy should take place next week.
For Monday, the airport's website indicated that only one regular flight (of the Wizzair airline) was scheduled to depart. The summer charter holiday season should be launched in mid-July, as travel agencies started to sell flights for holidaymakers as of that time. "The flights to Zakynthos, Heraklion in Crete, Rhodos, Burgas will follow as of July 16. Flights to Antalya in Turkey and Hurghada in Egypt are planned as well, however, their implementation will depend on the opening of Slovakia's borders with Turkey and Egypt, as these are still closed and flights thus cannot take place," said Chief Operating Officer Imrich Ancin.
