Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary WON'T refund November bookings if flights are still running despite foreign travel ban - and accuses Boris Johnson of using lockdown to 'cover up' his 'political mismanagement'

Ryanair has announced losses of £178million from the coronavirus pandemic as its CEO insisted testing could have avoided new restrictions, branding Boris Johnson's second lockdown 'a cover-up for political mismanagement'.

Michael O'Leary savaged the government over the impending national shutdown as his Ireland-based low cost airline said it 'expects record higher losses' in the second half of the year.

But he said despite the impending national lockdown people would not be able to get refunds on flights booked in November if the planes were still going.

Instead they will have to change their reservations to a different date in the future. 

Ryanair's huge losses are particularly striking as the company has a lower cost base and a stronger balance sheet.

Mr O'Leary said: 'National lockdown hasn't defeated Covid, that's the whole point, the lockdown at the start of the year achieved nothing, the second lockdown will achieve even less – it's just a cover-up for political mismanagement, which the Johnson government continues to deliver.

Michael O'Leary called Boris 's new lockdown 'a cover-up for political mismanagement'

'What we need is much more extensive test and tracing, the UK should setting a target of not just 500,000 people a week, it should be 5 million a week, you need much more extensive testing.

'Air travel, certainly on shorthold within the European Union can continue and has if you have passengers having a test within 72 hours of departure - that would give us assurances we're not spreading the virus in Europe.

'European governments have failed to put that in place during the first lockdown, which is why we have this second lockdown and we need to use this second lockdown to massively scale up testing because testing is the way out of or living with this virus without having these utterly failed and deeply damaging lockdowns.'

The CEO was speaking to Radio 4 as he admitted stripping out the flight schedule for most of November and the early part of December

He said there was a skeleton selection of services between UK airports and Europe, kept on for essential work travel.

But he said it meant if flights were still operating they could not get refunds, despite the lockdown banning travel.

Ryanair said it had lost £178million so far this year and expected more to come in later months

Airports like Heathrow, pictured, are empty after the coronavirus restrictions hit hard

Mr O'Leary added: 'What customers can take advantage of is our change facility, we've waived the change fee, so if they were booking in November they can change it, move to December or January if needs be, but there won't be refunds on flights that are operating and travelling.'

Bizarrely England's airports have seen waves of holidaymakers rush to leave the country before the latest lockdown rules come into effect on Thursday.

The new rules, which will see both international travel and travel inside the UK banned for a month, have sparked a stampede of people rushing to the departure gates before they are slammed shut to all but a handful of travellers.

As part of the lockdown plans, travellers who are already on holiday, or leave before Thursday, are not required to return from their trips early, it has been announced.

Coronavirus saw 99% of the carrier's fleet grounded for almost four months between mid-March and the end of June.

The company said traffic in the first half of the year fell from 86 million to 17 million passengers compared with the same period last year, around 80%.

Its revenue dropped 78% to 1.18 billion euros (£1.06 billion), while the loss in this half year contrasts with a profit after tax of 1.15 billion euros (£1.04 billion) in the first half of last financial year.

Data on flights analysed by Flightradar24 showed the difference in flights from last year

With almost no traffic in the first quarter of the year, the 'vast majority' of the first half of the year's revenue was earned in the second quarter, the firm said.

It added: 'Given the current Covid-19 uncertainty, Ryanair cannot provide FY21 PAT (profit after tax) guidance at this time.

'The group expects to carry approximately 38 million passengers in FY21, although this guidance could be further revised downwards if EU Govts continue to mismanage air travel and impose more uncoordinated travel restrictions or lock downs this winter.'

It said the pandemic, uncertainties over Brexit, airline pricing, fuel costs, competition from new and existing carriers, actions by governments and the willingness of passengers to travel 'could significantly impact' its results for the remainder of the year.

It was critical of what it called a 'flood of illegal state aid from EU governments' to carriers including Air France and Lufthansa, which it said would 'distort competition and allow failed flag carriers to engage in below-cost selling for many years'.  

How more than 210,000 job losses have been revealed by major UK firms since lockdown began 

Some 212,081 job losses have been announced by major British employers since the start of the coronavirus lockdown in March as follows: