Aberdeen Airport costs put off Ryanair
14.03.09
Ryanair has revealed it wants to set up a base at Aberdeen Airport – but soaring costs and air travel taxes are forcing it to look at mainland Europe instead. The budget airline, which carries more than 50million passengers every year, says it is looking at setting up low-cost routes from Aberdeen to Paris, Barcelona and Frankfurt, potentially bringing more than 100 jobs to the north-east.
But last night the airline dismissed Aberdeen as ‘unattractive’, claiming the BAA-owned airport was ‘expensive’ and that air taxes being levied by the UK Government were having a huge impact on regional airports.
Ryanair currently has one route, from Aberdeen to Dublin, which has flown four days a week since it was introduced in 2002. It carried over 70,000 passengers through Aberdeen Airport last year, but this was a fall of more than 5,000 on the previous year.
At a press conference in Aberdeen yesterday, the airline said this decline could be reversed with the scrapping of air passenger duty and the introduction of a low-cost deal at Aberdeen Airport.
A spokeswoman for BAA said: ‘The tax issue is one for the government. Regarding future Ryanair routes to and from Aberdeen, the talks which have been held have been positive.'
As regular readers will know, Ryanair often uses such 'press conferences' as a negotiating technique in order to try to get a better deal. The airport negotiators should feel pleased that the airline is resorting to this. If it did not want to launch routes, it would not hold a 'press conference' or hold out the prospect of 100 jobs.
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