Ryanair bust-up with airport costs 600 jobs
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 10:46 PM
A bitter war of words broke out yesterday between Ryanair and Manchester Airport as the budget airline pledged to axe nine of its 10 routes and up to 600 jobs.
Despite massive first-quarter profits, the no-frills carrier demanded the airport lower its charges or it would take its flights to "competing, lower-cost" hubs.
In exchange, it offered Manchester an extra 28 weekly flights and 400,000 new passengers, which would have created 400 new jobs.
But airport chiefs rejected the offer saying that their charges were reasonable. Manchester airport's managing director Andrew Cornish said yesterday: "Ryanair made us an offer we could refuse."
A total of 44 weekly Ryanair flights will be lost at Manchester from October 1, with the loss of 60,000 passengers a year and 600 airport jobs.
It means Ryanair's Manchester routes to Barcelona (Girona), Bremen in Germany, Brussels (Charleroi), Cagliari in Sardinia, Dusseldorf (Weeze), Frankfurt (Hahn), Marseille, Milan (Bergamo) and Shannon will cease.
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Most of the flights will be switched to East Midlands, Leeds Bradford and Liverpool airports.
Passengers affected will be emailed directly by Ryanair and given a full refund or the option of flying from an alternative airport. The cuts come despite an 11% rise in Ryanair's passenger numbers in the three months to June.
The firm also boosted profits from £18million in the same period in 2008 to £118million this year.
But the carrier's Stephen McNamara said: "Ryanair had offered new routes, traffic and growth to Manchester airport but since they prefer to preserve their high-cost base, Ryanair will switch/close nine Manchester routes."
A Manchester airport spokesman hit back, saying: "We don't believe charges as low as £3 per passenger are unreasonable. Clearly, Ryanair do and that's regrettable."
Unions vowed to fight the cuts by Ryanair, which has also threatened to close routes at Stansted airport.
But within hours of Ryanair's announcement, rival airline Jet2.com announced plans for three new routes from Manchester, which will create 250 jobs.
250 jobs. will be created by Jet2.com at Manchester with flights to Gran Canaria, Kos and Venice
Source: The Mirror