UK could become no-fly zone after Brexit, Ryanair warns

The UK could be left without any flights to and from Europe after Brexit, Ryanair has warned. The low-cost airline said aviation should be treated as a matter of urgency in Brexit negotiations, as summer schedules for 2019 must be finalised by March next year.
The Dublin-headquartered company, which operates more than 1,800 flights to over 200 destinations in 33 countries daily, urged the UK Government to “put aviation at the forefront of its negotiations with the EU and provide a coherent post-Brexit plan,” said Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs in a statement.

Without a bilateral agreement being struck with the EU, Britain will have to revert to historic WTO regulations that do not cover aviation, Ryanair said. British airlines that want to continue to operate flights within the EU, for example from Germany to Italy, face another headache. They could be forced to establish EU subsidiaries and rework their ownership structures.
If it doesn’t, Ryanair says that Westminster risks leaving the “leaving the UK without any flights to/from Europe for a period from March 2019, when it exits the EU”. The airline employs over 3,000 staff in the UK and expects to carry over 44 million passengers in and out of British airports this year.

According to Reuters, the flexibility afforded by the Open Skies policy, which was introduced in 1997, has been critical to Ryanair's expansion. A third of Ryanair's 120 million passengers now fly from UK airports, according to Reuters.