All Northern Ireland – Italy flight routes now cancelled

Northern Ireland’s air links to Italy have now been shut down in their entirety.
By Adam Kula
Published 11th Mar 2020, 12:05 BST
Updated 11th Mar 2020, 12:13 BST
This is the EasyJet web page concerning flights to Venice as of March 11, 2020This is the EasyJet web page concerning flights to Venice as of March 11, 2020
This is the EasyJet web page concerning flights to Venice as of March 11, 2020

According to information on the websites of EasyJet and Jet2, the two airlines which were still operating flights as of Tuesday night, the Belfast-Verona air route and the Belfast-Venice air route have been axed.

The last EasyJet flight from Belfast International to Venice (in north Italy) on Monday this week had already been cancelled.

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And now, as of Wednesday morning, this Friday’s pending 3.15pm flight to Venice has been cancelled.

A statement from the firm said: “Following restrictions implemented by the Italian authorities, easyJet is now in the process of cancelling all of its existing scheduled flights touching Italy between 10 March and 3 April 2020.

“We will be operating some rescue flights in the coming days. We are advising affected customers of their options by email and SMS which includes the option of rebooking or requesting a refund.

“We will be operating rescue flights for passengers wishing to travel for essential, work, health or repatriation reasons to and from Italy.

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“Rescue flights will be listed on our ‘Latest Travel Information’ section of the website and customers can book onto these flights via our contact centre or by arriving at the airport as early as possible on the day of departure.”

Meanwhile Jet2 was due to fly out of the international airport on Saturday to Verona (also in north Italy) on its regular once-weekly route, but its website is currently showing no flights on that route at all.

It said: “We always follow the travel advice of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who are currently advising against all but essential travel to Italy.

“As such, we have cancelled all flights to Italy (Rome, Naples, Pisa, Turin, Venice and Verona) between now and 26 April 2020 (inclusive).”

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Unexpectedly, the footfall figures (measuring the number of shoppers) in Belfast city centre have shown a week-on-week increase, according to Belfast City Centre Management.

Though it did not provide hard figures, its managing director Clare Maguire said that more people visited the city centre on Monday March 2 to Sunday March 8, than in the previous seven days.

She said that “we’d have expected to see a slight drop” in numbers, but this has not materialised.

Related topics:ItalyJet2Northern IrelandEasyJetBelfastSMS