Ryanair will continue to operate a limited number of flights to some European destinations as the coronavirus crisis continues.

The budget airline has grounded 90% of its fleet until April 2, and said it expected flights to remain that way throughout May.

It will now operate a limited Irish schedule as countries across the globe implement travel restrictions in a bid the curb the spread of Covid-19.

In a statement, the airline said it would only operate daily or weekly flights between Dublin and the UK to London Stanstead, London Gatwick, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, as well as Cork to London Stansted.

The company also said it would only operate daily or weekly flights from Dublin to Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Lisbon and Cologne.

Ryanair

It will also service London routes to some airports in Europe, including Lisbon and Berlin.

A statement from Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary read: “As most EU countries have imposed flight bans or other restrictions, over 90% of Ryanair’s aircraft will be grounded for the coming weeks.

“We will comply with these restrictions at all times. We are all working with EU governments to try to keep some minimum flight links open for emergency reasons, even though the passenger loads on these flights will be very low.

"All these aircraft are disinfected daily, with low loads social distancing will be optimised on-board, and we ask all passengers to cooperate fully with our crews who are doing their best in difficult times to maintain vital links to/from Ireland and to/from the UK to facilitate our passengers and their families to deal with emergencies that may require urgent travel over the coming days and weeks.

"Ryanair apologises sincerely for the unprecedented grounding of our aircraft fleet, and any schedule disruptions this may have caused, but we must all work together with EU Governments to minimise the impact of Covid-19 on our citizens and our health services

"As we all work to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, let’s take care of ourselves, each other, our families, and our communities."

The company also said it is working to provide repatriation and rescue flights for a number of EU governments and has offered its aircraft for emergency medical flights, including to and from China.

The move comes after we revealed Aer Lingus is to fly five of its largest aircrafts packed with health supplies from China in a daily coronavirus mercy mission for Ireland.

Dozens of its pilots who volunteered to help with the humanitarian operation were sorting their visas in the Chinese Embassy in Dublin on Wednesday.

The airline plans to send over its Airbus A330 passenger planes to Beijing up to 60 times to collect medical equipment ordered by the HSE.