Ryanair confirms 20% cut in flights from Dublin

Ryanair today confirmed that it will further reduce its flights and traffic at Dublin Airport this summer by up to 20%, citing rising DAA airport charges and the government’s €10 tourist tax as it reasons for the decision.

These cuts come one week after BMI announced the closure of its Dublin base and cuts in its Dublin-Heathrow flights from 7 to 4 this summer.
 
According to Ryanair, the DAA’s high costs and the €10 tourist tax have caused Dublin Airport’s traffic to collapse by 3m passengers in 2009.  Already this winter, Dublin Airport has suffered the loss of British Airways, Malev and Budget Travel in addition to BMI’s Heathrow cutbacks.
 
Ryanair expects total traffic at Dublin Airport to fall from 20m to 18m in 2010, as it announced up to 20% cuts in its Dublin operations for summer 2010 including:
 
- A 17% cut in Dublin based summer fleet (from 18 in 2009 to 15 aircraft in 2010).
- A 19% cut in weekly rotations (from over 600 to less than 500).
- A 20% cut in Ryanair’s Dublin traffic from 8.7m to approx 6.5m in the year to March 2011.
- The loss of 150 Ryanair jobs (pilots, crew & engineers) and over 2,000 support jobs at Dublin.
- Further cuts in Ryanair’s Dublin winter schedule will be announced later.
 
Ireland in general, and Dublin Airport in particular, are now high cost destinations, compared to other European cities where airports are lowering costs and governments are scrapping tourist taxes. 

Ryanair’s operations at Dublin airport will focus on higher yield, outbound, peak month, summer sun routes, rather than stimulating year round inbound tourism with low access fares.  Ryanair today announced a range of extra holiday flights from Dublin for the 3 peak summer months of June, July and August 2010 to Alicante, Canary Islands, Faro and Malaga, amongst others, for Irish people who simply want to get away for a sun holiday. 

Ryanair will grow by over 7m passengers to 73m this year but all this expansion is taking place at EU airports and countries where governments are reducing airports costs (in some cases to zero) and are scrapping tourist taxes.  Ryanair will open new bases in 2010 in Bari, Brindisi, Faro, Malaga, Oslo (Rygge) and Leeds Bradford to support its continued growth.
 
Announcing these summer 2010 Dublin 20% cuts, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said:
 
“The DAA’s high costs and the Govt’s €10 tourist tax have already cost Ireland more than 3m passengers in 2009.  Today’s further cut backs means Ryanair will carry 2 million less passengers at Dublin and 1 million fewer passengers at Shannon in 2010/11.  Irish tourism is now suffering a government induced tourism collapse under the weight of the €10 tourist tax and the extraordinary anti-consumer order by the Dept of Transport (to the Aviation Regulator) to approve increases in DAA fees of 40% to pay for a Terminal 2 which Dublin’s airlines neither want nor need”.