Ryanair pull out of Blackpool Airport over tax
25.10.08
Ryanair is to withdraw flights from Blackpool Airport in January in protest at the introduction of a new passenger charge. The budget airline has axed its daily services to Dublin and its Girona route after the airport announced a £10 airport development fee, which will be payable by all passengers over 16 years old from January 5 - although the will get free airport parking.
The airport says that the revenue generated from its new fee will be used to fund a £2 million development plan to upgrade runways, taxi-stops and the apron. However, Michael Cawley, chief executive of Ryanair, said: : ‘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.’
More than 1.3 million visitors have used the airport with Ryanair since the routes were launched in 2003. This route cancellation is the latest in a series of scheduled closures and flight reductions announced by Ryanair in recent weeks.
Ryanair will stop flights from the airport on January 4, the day before the fee is introduced. However, Blackpool Airport has said that it is ‘within days’ of signing a new major airline to replace the lost flights. Sounds like Aer Arann again to us (they recently replaced an axed Prestwick - Dublin service, and there is an animosity between the two Irish airlines).
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