Ryanair axe all flights over development fee
25.11.08
Ryanair will withdraw flights from Blackpool Airport in January in protest over the introduction of a new passenger charge. The budget airline will axe its daily services to Dublin and its Girona route after the airport announced a £10 airport development fee, payable by all passengers over 16 years old from January 5 - although the will get up to 15 days free airport parking.
The airport says that the revenue generated from its new fee will be used to fund a £2m plan to upgrade runways, taxi-stops and the apron. However, Michael Cawley, chief executive of Ryanair, said: : ‘Management's decision, against Ryanair's advice, to introduce an airport development fee is an extremely regressive step. It inevitably involves a massive increase in the cost of travel for passengers through the airport.’
More than 1.3 million passengers have used the airport with Ryanair since the routes were launched in 2003. However, the budgte airline axed its Stansted route in 2006, with this route cancellation 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. That sounds like Aer Arann to us. They recently replaced an axed Prestwick - Dublin service, and there is an animosity between the two Irish airlines.
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