Ryanair move to axe Manchester flights 'jeopardises 1,000 jobs'

Published on Monday 17 August 2009 21:54

THE crossfire between airlines and airport operators over landing charges escalated dramatically yesterday as no-frills operator Ryanair virtually quit Manchester airport.

Ryanair laid the blame squarely on Manchester airport's refusal to lower its charges, and claimed it would lead to the loss of up to 600 local jobs.

The airline also said it would prevent 400 jobs being created under a deal it said it had offered the airport if it cut charges.

However, Manchester airport hit back, saying: "Notwithstanding all of our investment in Manchester airport, including during the current recession, we don't believe that charges as low as 3 per passenger are unreasonable. Clearly, Ryanair do and that's regrettable."

The airline revealed it was to close or switch nine of its ten routes at Manchester airport from 1 October.

Yesterday's showdown came as Ryanair also said it hoped to boost its winter schedules from Edinburgh and Prestwick.

A Ryanair spokesman said: "We are looking to have more winter routes from Edinburgh and Prestwick than last year.

"We are looking at finalising the schedules for those two airport bases for us, and hope to have them pretty much agreed by the end of this week."

Last winter the airline operated 19 routes out of Edinburgh, with a "similar number" out of Prestwick, the spokesman said.

A total of 44 weekly flights will be cut at Manchester, with the loss of 600,000 passengers a year.

The Ryanair spokesman said airline industry research showed that when a million passengers were lost to an airport that usually led to a jobs reduction of about 1,000.

He said he believed the 600 projected job losses at Manchester would be split evenly between the airport and support businesses.

Ryanair said it had offered Manchester an additional 28 weekly flights and 400,000 new passengers which would have created 400 new jobs if the airport "reduced its high charges".

This means Ryanair's Manchester links with Barcelona (Girona), Bremen in Germany, Brussels (Charleroi), Cagliari in Sardinia, Dusseldorf (Weeze), Frankfurt (Hahn), Marseille, Milan (Bergamo) and Shannon will cease from 1 October.

Ryanair said passengers affected would be given a full refund or, in some cases, flights from "competing, lower-cost airports" such as East Midlands, the recently announced new Ryanair base at Leeds Bradford, and Liverpool.

The spokesman said: "Ryanair continues to lower fares to encourage travel, but with passengers paying lower fares airports must lower charges – particularly high-cost airports like Manchester, Stansted and Dublin."

Ryanair has announced cutbacks in winter 2009-10 flights at Stansted and Dublin.

Ryanair yesterday launched a sale of a million seats at an all-inclusive price for travel in late September, October and November to more than 500 European destinations. They must be booked online at the airline by Thursday midnight.