This Morning travel expert Simon Calder has taken ITV1 viewers on a tour of a Ryanair flight as the airline begins operating once more.
The budget carrier has resumed flights from a variety of UK airports – including Birmingham – this week.
The Irish airline is restarting 40 per cent of its UK operations, after it grounded flights with countries shuttering borders across the globe in March.
The coronavirus crisis has left the travel industry on its knees, but Ryanair has committed to restarting operations once more.
As such, This Morning took a tour of a flight in a post-lockdown world on Thursday’s instalment.
Simon was seen in his seat wearing a mask after GMB presenter Ranvir Singh and co-host Ben Shephard cut to him for the segment.
He told viewers: “It is about half full – there is an empty seat next to me.
“I am going to Northern Ireland in about 10 minutes. You can hear the announcement.
“I would say there are about 80 passengers – which means 100 empty seats.”
He continued: “Apart from the fact there are very strict rules, the captain just told us we have to ding the call bell if we need to go to the loo during the flight.
“Apart from the fact everybody is wearing a mask, it is actually pretty normal.
“Of course, looking outside, London Gatwick Airport is far from normal.
“Usually you would see a busy day – an awful lot of flights – but instead, basically, you have loads and loads of planes parked.
“But the airlines are getting back into action.”
