RYANAIR YESTERDAY announced further cuts to its schedule at Dublin and Shannon airports and said fares out of Ireland are likely to rise by “at least 10 per cent”.
At a press conference in Dublin, chief executive Michael O’Leary said the airline would reduce the number of aircraft based in Dublin from 18 to 15 during its summer schedule, which begins on March 28th.
Ryanair said this would result in the loss of 150 jobs at the airline and 2,000 support jobs.
Mr O’Leary said additional cuts to its winter schedule would be announced later.
The Ryanair boss said the latest cuts in capacity would reduce its traffic at Dublin Airport from 8.7 million passengers to 6.5 million in the year to March 2011.
Mr O’Leary blamed the increase in airport passenger charges in Dublin – which have risen by 23 per cent to €9.32 – and the Government’s €10 travel tax for its decision to cut services.
“There will be no free seats out of Ireland this year,” he said. “I doubt there’ll be any seat sales below €10.”
In spite of the cuts, Ryanair said it would add capacity to its services to a number of sun destinations for June, July and August. These include Barcelona, Malaga, Faro and the Canary Islands.
“The growth will be focused on the summer months when people are willing to pay high fares to get the hell out of this country,” Mr O’Leary said.
The Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) said it was “disappointed” that Ryanair was reducing its services in the capital. It said Dublin was one of “Europe’s most competitively priced large airports”.
The DAA added: “Ryanair’s public position does not stand up to scrutiny.
“If, as it claims, charges at Dublin airport are one of the key reasons that it is reducing capacity, why do those same charges not have any impact on the company’s desire to offer additional flights to sun destinations from Dublin this year?
“A passenger pays the same charge at Dublin airport whether they are flying to Malaga or to Manchester. Ryanair is making these changes to suit Ryanair’s own financial position, as is always the case.”
Ryanair said it would base just one aircraft in Shannon this year, compared with four in 2009.
This would result in it carrying 400,000 passengers in 2010 compared to a peak of 1.9 million.
