Ryanair Shannon Pullout

jmccoy

Thursday, November 19, 2009

RYANAIR has confirmed it has cut 17 routes from Shannon Airport from the end of March resulting in the loss of 150 jobs and a 75% cut in capacity.

The airline said any passengers that booked flights after that date will be informed by the airline and refunded.

The 17 routes will be axed from 28 March.

The aircraft which were due to operate the routes will be redeployed to other Ryanair bases in Belgium, Holland and Spain which the airline said have axed tourist taxes or reduced airport charges, in some cases to zero.

Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said: "These bases will enjoy increased passenger traffic, tourism revenues and thousands of new jobs, while Irish tourism and travel collapses as a result of Shannon Airport’s refusal to compete with other European airports and the Irish government’s suicidal €10 tourist tax."

Passenger numbers at Shannon will be reduced from a 2007 high of 3.6 million to about 1.25m a year if a replacement carrier is not identified.

A five-year deal between Ryanair and the airport on charges and passenger numbers concludes around the same time that the airline is axing the routes and the Shannon Airport Authority has said it will not enter a new five-year deal due to what it says are Ryanair’s unreasonable demands.

Ryanair is understood to be seeking a 50% cut in its operating costs at Shannon.

The airline will reduce the number of aircraft based at Shannon from four to one.

The flights being cancelled are Alicante, Birmingham, Bristol, Brussels, Carcassonne, Edinburgh, Faro, Girona, Glasgow, Gran Canaria, Krakow, Lanzarote, Liverpool, Lodz, Milan and Murcia and Venice.

The remaining flights are to London Gatwick, Stansted, Malaga, Nantes, Palma, Paris and Tenerife.

barrycork

Where did you hear about them refunding flight costs as I have booked for next june, its not on their website. knowing them it will be six months before they act..........

Bandearg

Yes I've booked flights for June aswell and want to know where you got that information on refunds from? I havent been contacted by Ryanair yet...Also when do they intend on giving refunds and is this hear say or directly from a Ryanair representative?

irishvamp90

No doubt its bad news but surely alot of this routes were not that busy?Faro and Malaga only for a weeks of summer surely,people that got holiday homes in the boom.London is a busy route no doubt.All the european routes italy poland etc surely must be down,theres only so many people on stags/hens,going to matches

Henry Ford III

Time to close Shannon coming soon?

KetchupKid

Yes, thank you to Cowen & Company!!!! Another great move!!!!! FF's stubbornness refusing to give in to O'Leary will be the end of Shannon.

What good is an airport tax, if there's no airport??

Well, at least those in the West can swim to Europe and if we get anymore rain, that will be the only means of transport left.

The only positive thing out of this is I'll never vote FF again!!

sioda

I travel the shannon girona route and carcassone shannon routes quite regularly and the flights are almost always at 80% occupancy but the flights usually cost round 60 quid of which a tenner is Biffos retirement fund.

Its a feicin disgrace. Tax needs to be pulled and control of shannon taken from the dublin loving DAA

Kess73

Well that's my Shannon to Liverpool flights gone.


Bloody stupid that it was let get to this stage. I guess the government hold not reducing their airport taxes in higher regard than actually keeping businesses in place.

irishvamp90

sioda wrote: »

I travel the shannon girona route and carcassone shannon routes quite regularly and the flights are almost always at 80% occupancy but the flights usually cost round 60 quid of which a tenner is Biffos retirement fund.

Its a feicin disgrace. Tax needs to be pulled and control of shannon taken from the dublin loving DAA

Sorry i didnt realise they were busy routes.But surely alot of this routes were grand in the celtic tiger?

phog

O'Leary seems to be blaming everyone but himself, the travel tax, DAA, the government. What about greed, he was everyone to give him the service for nothing so that he can charge what he likes and brag on about how he can run a cheap airline.

He has not difficulty charging €10 per name if paying by CC, he doesn't refund the taxes in the event that you cancel. He is close to being a thief.

KetchupKid

phog wrote: »

O'Leary seems to be blaming everyone but himself, the travel tax, DAA, the government. What about greed, he was everyone to give him the service for nothing so that he can charge what he likes and brag on about how he can run a cheap airline.

He has not difficulty charging €10 per name if paying by CC, he doesn't refund the taxes in the event that you cancel. He is close to being a thief.

You can complain about O'Leary all you want, the bottom line is 150 jobs are gone and the infrastructure for the West has been greatly reduced giving many of us who have been shagged by this recession even less options.

As said before, the DAA shouldn't control Shannon, since the D stands for Dublin, not Shannon or even Ireland!! And the government needs to realise that jobs and infrastructure is more important than a tax that won't be collected if there aren't any flights and the axe they have to grind with O'Leary.

celliman

I was coming back from Malaga 2 weeks ago.Ryanair had a polish bouncer at the departure gate checking cabin luggage for weight and size.Any person who had bought duty free were been charged for extra bags if it could not fit in one bag.They were making a killing on it.Ryan air-robbing ba#tards.Let them off easyjet will come in and take the 2mil.passengers he has built up over the years,a ready made market

Henry Ford III

Little chance Easyjet would return I reckon. They got burned the last time.

topper75

Plus they have general troubles and won't take risks.

zuroph

the countries best airport is going to be lost thanks to the DAA. what a shower of useless bastards.

highlydebased

Henry Ford III wrote: »

Little chance Easyjet would return I reckon. They got burned the last time.

They got burned the last time as Ryanair had 6 aircraft in Shannon.

if they come back, Ryanair will have one, and will be in a huff over fee's so will probably not fight back.

Itsdacraic

Most airlines are concentrating on consolidating existing routes not taking risks on new ones, this will be Shannons downfall in terms of attracting new routes. I have a feeling all this showboating and "hardball" from O'Leary is just a way of implementing cutbacks in Ryanair, without them having to announce it as such.

phog

KetchupKid wrote: »

You can complain about O'Leary all you want, the bottom line is 150 jobs are gone and the infrastructure for the West has been greatly reduced giving many of us who have been shagged by this recession even less options.

As said before, the DAA shouldn't control Shannon, since the D stands for Dublin, not Shannon or even Ireland!! And the government needs to realise that jobs and infrastructure is more important than a tax that won't be collected if there aren't any flights and the axe they have to grind with O'Leary.

If Shannon was controlled by a local group who were born and reared in the area O'Leary would still something to bitch about, have you ever, even once hear him say a word of praise for any of the authorities he has to work with, everyone is a eejit except the great Michael and Ryanair. Everything is rosey when he is increasing his presence but once he wants to pull out everyone is wrong.

There's a recession and he is consolidating, thats the real issue.

shawnee

See Ryanair are now flying from Cork to Carcassonne and probably moving more of the Shannon flights to Cork also. This is a huge loss of jobs, revenue for Shannon area.

highlydebased

shawnee wrote: »

See Ryanair are now flying from Cork to Carcassonne and probably moving more of the Shannon flights to Cork also. This is a huge loss of jobs, revenue for Shannon area.

They always flew from Cork to Carcassone in the summer, so nothing has been moved. It would be very hypocrtical of them to start some of the old Shannon flights out of cork, seeing as cork management would not give them any sort of deal at all before, or now, and with the tourist tax there.