Minister Van Nieuwenhuizen thinks it is inappropriate that airline Ryanair offers tickets for only five euros to areas where code orange is in force. Many parties in the House of Representatives are furious about offering extremely cheap tickets, while the corona virus is flaring up again. “There is talk of ordinary dumping”, says CDA MP Amhaouch.
“Let me be clear about it: I think it’s a travesty,” said the Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management in a debate about the spread of the virus by international passenger transport. But she cannot forbid stunting with prizes. Ryanair also gives away tickets for free.
Discourage
A general ban on holiday flights to areas with code orange, as some parties in the House of Representatives want, is also not possible. Last week, some 40,000 travelers traveled to a high-risk area from Schiphol. The House is concerned that holidaymakers will return infected and then spread the virus further in the Netherlands.
Van Nieuwenhuizen understands the concerns and says he wants to do everything to discourage these holiday flights. She is thinking of additional warning public campaigns, also on social media, addressing airlines and perhaps warning signs along the highway, because travelers also travel to orange areas by car and train.
Price dumping
“But it is very complicated,” emphasizes the minister. Necessary trips to orange areas are allowed, for example due to family circumstances such as a funeral. Cargo flights are also allowed. A traveler cannot see what the exact destination is, according to the minister. “I am really willing to stop this further.”
In the end, she thinks it is the travelers’ responsibility to decide to leave for an orange region.
She is going to talk specifically with her European colleagues about Ryanair’s stunt prices, for example by looking at whether society is guilty of price dumping or violating advertising rules. According to Van Nieuwenhuizen, it makes no sense to call CEO Michael O’Leary to the mat. “I don’t think he’s very keen to come.”
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