Ryanair again criticised European governments on Friday for its “continuous changes” in travel restrictions. 

The announcement comes as it says it will slash its October capacity by a further 20%.

It follows a 20% capacity cut announced last month, meaning the budget airline now expects its October capacity to fall from 50% to roughly 40% of levels in the same month last year.

“As customer confidence is damaged by government mismanagement of Covid travel policies, many Ryanair customers are unable to travel for business or urgent family reasons without being subjected to defective 14-day quarantines,” said a spokesman.

He added: “While it is too early yet to make final decisions on our winter schedule (from November to March), if current trends and EU governments' mismanagement of the return of air travel and normal economic activity continue, then similar capacity cuts may be required across the winter period.”

The Irish airline, which resumed flights in July after the lockdown, singled out Ireland, blaming the government for maintaining “excessive and defective travel restrictions.”

As RyanAir launched these fresh attacks on Friday morning, travel stocks fell in early trading this morning in London.

British Airways owner IAG led the FTSE 100 fallers, taking a beating of more than 8%. easyJet was also down nearly 7%, and Ryanair and Wizz Air were also in the red.

Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said: “Today’s European market open appears to reflect these continued concerns with a fairly weak start as we come to the end of a pretty choppy, but directionless week.”