Ryanair has announced a further series of route, flight and frequency cuts at Dublin Airport from July, citing the impact of the €10 tourist tax and other Irish Government charges as the cause of passenger numbers declining – down 12% in February.
Ryanair confirmed that these latest cuts were being implemented in response to the decision of the Irish Aviation Authority to increase ATC charges by 12% this summer, which the airline points out is more than 12 times the rate of inflation.
From July 2009 Ryanair will close four routes from Dublin to Basel, Doncaster, Oporto and Teesside, and reduce frequencies on eight more routes from Dublin to Aberdeen, Biarritz, Billund, Bournemouth, Carcassonne, East Midlands, Malaga and Rome (Ciampino). The cuts will result in one additional based aircraft (five in total) being switched from Dublin Airport to a European base in July.
Ryanair’s latest cuts at Dublin for summer 2009 will see: a 22% cut in Dublin based aircraft (from 22 to 17); a 20% cut in weekly rotations (from over 700 to under 600); a 23% drop in Ryanair’s Dublin traffic (10.8 million to 8.3 million passengers in 2009/10); the loss of 50 Dublin-based jobs (250 in total). Further cuts in Ryanair’s Dublin winter schedule are to be announced later.
“This latest 12% increase in government-owned ATC charges at Dublin Airport is another nail in the coffin of Irish tourism," declared Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary. "These increases have been rubber-stamped yet again by Ireland’s useless aviation regulator, Cathal Guiomard, proving again how useless he is and that he should be sacked. How can any regulator approve a 12% increase in ATC charges in a year when inflation will be negative? This is impossible to justify.
“These IAA increases show that this gutless Government has no interest in Irish tourism. Over the last three months traffic at Dublin Airport has declined by 12%, with 500,000 fewer passengers, and this collapse will get worse from April when the Government €10 travel tax and these IAA increases come in."
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