600 jobs to go as Ryanair pulls 90% of Manchester routes
BUDGET airline Ryanair has pulled the plug on nine of its 10 routes from Manchester Airport, in a row over charges, in a move that will cause up to 600 job losses.
The news follows the Irish airline’s £80m investment last week in creating a 14-route hub at Leeds Bradford Airport.
Earlier Manchester Airport boss Andrew Cornish told a travel industry publication that Manchester would not “prostitute itself” to Ryanair by offering uncommercial terms, even if it meant more routes.
Mr Cornish told the Travel Trade Gazette: “Ryanair made us an offer we could refuse. We are not prepared to prostitute ourselves to have the market trashed.
“Whatever Leeds has done, it has done. We said no to Ryanair and that could have consequences for us for the winter, but if they want to withdraw services for the winter then other people will fill them.”
Ryanair, which also recently announced more routes out of Liverpool John Lennon Airport, will now only operate flights to Dublin out of Manchester.
It will axe the services from Barcelona, Bremen, Brussels, Cagliari, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Marseille, Milan and Shannon from October 1.
Ryanair’s communications chief Stephen McNamara said: “Ryanair continues to lower fares to encourage travel, but with passengers paying lower fares airports must lower their charges – particularly high cost airports like Manchester, London (Stansted) and Dublin.
“Ryanair had offered new routes, traffic and growth to Manchester Airport but since they prefer to preserve their high cost base than to grow, Ryanair will now switch/close nine Manchester routes to East Midlands, Leeds Bradford and Liverpool from 1st October next resulting in the loss of 600,000 passengers per year and up to 600 jobs at Manchester.”
A Manchester Airport spokesperson said: “Not withstanding all of our investment in Manchester Airport including during the current recession, 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.
“Passengers will still be able to travel directly to the majority of the destinations affected by choosing other airlines”.
