Ryanair is to drop its two services to Blackpool airport in England in what it said was 'protest’ at a £10 charge being introduced in the new year, it announced today.
Blackpool International Airport is to charge the £10 airport development fee (ADF) for all departing passengers aged 16 and over, from January 5th.
The budget airline said today it will close its daily Blackpool-Dublin and its thrice-weekly Blackpool-Girona services from January 4th.
Ryanair deputy chief executive Michael Cawley said: “This is a black day for Blackpool airport. The management’s decision, against Ryanair’s advice, to introduce an airport development fee is an extremely regressive step which inevitably involves a massive increase in the cost of travel for passengers through the airport.”
A spokeswoman for the airport said negotiations had been ongoing with Ryanair for six months in a bid to put the airport on a more sustainable footing.
She said the airline had been well aware of the pending passenger charge, which was necessary in order to address “very considerable” losses at Blackpool airport.
As part of the plan, the airport had introduced free passenger parking in a bid to encourage passengers who might otherwise use Liverpool or Manchester airports.
“Ryanair didn’t like this…and it put us in a situation where we basically had to ask them to leave,” she said.
“We knew we would be going down this route and we are now in quite firm negotiations with a replacement airline.”
She could not provide further details on those talks, she said, but the airport hoped to be in a position to make an announcement soon.
Ryanair said it had carried more than 1.3 million passengers on its Blackpool routes since starting at the Lancashire airport in May 2003.
This is the latest in a series of route closures and frequency reductions announced by Ryanair in recent weeks, some of them because of reduced demand during the winter.
The airline also today called on rival Aer Lingus to abolish its “unfair and unjustified” fuel surcharge as oil prices had fallen by over 70 per cent to under $47 per barrel, which it said was $4 below the $51 level at which Aer Lingus introduced its first fuel surcharge in April 2006.
Additional reporting: PA