Ryanair cut all but one Manchester route
18.08.09
Ryanair is closing or switching 9 of its 10 routes from Manchester Airport - a move that will lead to the loss of 600 jobs, it says. The budget carrier blamed Manchester Airport's refusal to lower its charges for the decision. A total of 44 weekly Ryanair flights will be lost from October 1, with the loss of 60,000 passengers a year.
Ryanair's Manchester routes to Barcelona (Girona), Bremen, Brussels (Charleroi), Cagliari, Dusseldorf (Weeze), Frankfurt (Hahn), Marseille, Milan (Bergamo) and Shannon will cease from October 1. Passengers who are affected by the decision will be emailed and offered the choice of a refund or flying from a ‘lower cost airport’ - East Midlands, the recently-announced new Ryanair base at Leeds Bradford, and Liverpool.
Ryanair said it had offered Manchester Airport an additional 28 weekly flights and 400,000 new passengers. It said the move that would have created 400 new jobs if the airport ‘reduced its high charges’. A Manchester Airport spokesperson said the decision was ‘regrettable’. He said: ‘We don't believe that charges as low as £3 per passenger are unreasonable. Clearly, Ryanair do and that's regrettable.'
‘We've consistently cut our charges for the last 15 years even when faced with increased costs such as security. We have all but one service that Ryanair offers, served by other airlines that operate at Manchester, so the damage will be limited.’
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