OREANDA-NEWS. April 26, 2011. Ryanair, today (20th April) announced that it would cancel 72 of its 264 scheduled weekly flights to/from Trapani Airport from Friday 6th May due to continuing flight restrictions at Trapani as a result of Military operations to/from Libya. These military operation in Libya have temporarily reduced the number of civilian flights at Trapani Airport. These restrictions do not affect Ryanair’s four based Trapani aircraft which operate 192 flights each week, but flights on Ryanair’s non based Trapani aircraft have been forced to operate to/from Palermo Airport since 21st March.  However since these diversions to Palermo have caused significant disruption to passengers, Ryanair has decided that from 6th May these flights (to Palermo) will be cancelled until such time as they can operate normally to/from Trapani Airport.
 
Ryanair wishes to stress that the majority of its flights to/from Trapani Airport will be unaffected by these cancellations, and that 192 of its 264 planned weekly flights to/from Trapani will be unaffected. Only the 72 flights which would be diverted to Palermo during the week commencing 6th May will be cancelled and Ryanair is working closely with Trapani Airport to try to restore these flights once there is sufficient space at Trapani to accommodate them.
 
Ryanair apologises sincerely to passengers for these unavoidable cancellations. All affected passengers will be contacted via email or SMS and passengers will be offered a full refund or a switch to an alternative flight. A full list of cancelled flights is available on www.ryanair.com.
 
Ryanair’s Daniel de Carvalho said:
 
“We apologise sincerely to any passengers affected by these cancellations which are due to the Italian restrictions on civilian flights at Trapani Airport because of the military activity in Libya. The majority of Ryanair’s flights will continue to operate to/from Trapani as normal, but that small minority (which are currently diverting to/from Palermo will be cancelled on a rolling basis from 6th May next until they are permitted to operate as scheduled to Trapani. The Ryanair website will be continuously updated with these cancellations and passengers should check the Ryanair.com website if they have any concern about their flights to/from Trapani. Ryanair continues to work closely with Trapani Airport to try to remove these restrictions as soon as possible.”