18 June 2009

Ryanair slashes flights at Dublin and Shannon

Ryanair is cutting back winter capacity at Dublin and Shannon, blaming the GovernmentÃ¢â¬â¢s Ã¢'š~¬10 tourist tax, or Air Passenger Duty.

It is removing one aircraft at each airport, falling from 17 to 16 aircraft at Dublin and from four to three at Shannon.

This will mean the loss of 44 flights per week and 350 jobs at Dublin and a further 36 flights per week and 300 jobs at Shannon.

In the first five months of 2009 traffic at Dublin has fallen by 11%, Ryanair claimed.

It warned that further cuts in winter flight and traffic numbers will be announced in the coming months if the Government fails to scrap the tax.

But it said these winter cutbacks can be reversed if the tax is scrapped.

Ã¢â¬ÅâœThe Irish GovernmentÃ¢â¬â¢s Ã¢'š~¬10 tou rist tax is Ã¢â¬Åâœtourism suicideÃ¢â¬~ which is devastating visitor numbers and jobs.Ã¢â¬~ Said RyanairÃ¢â¬â¢s Michael OÃ¢â¬â¢Leary.

Ã¢â¬ÅâœPrice sensitive visitors are switching to lower cost destinations in Europe where governments welcome tourists, not tax them.Ã¢â¬~

By Bev Fearis

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Your Comments (5)

Ryanair always has someone else to blame

Just accept the fact that times are hard & that your growth is not going to go NORTH.

By Dipak Shah, Friday, June 19, 2009
&#pound;10 Card Fee or &#pound;10 Tax

What a joke. O'Leary the cheek to moan about a tax and then rips customers off by charging &#pound;10 per person for a debit card that costs pennies to process. Cut your card costs and then you can you can reverse your cutbacks yourself. Stop blaming the rest of the world for your woes and start looking in your own backyard. Start becoming user friendly and try embracing the trade might help as well. Your neighbours Easyjet manage it and are doing well we dont hear them bleating on all day but then the trade supports them and they manage to charge &#pound;2.95 TOTAL for a debit card

By Steve Norris, Friday, June 19, 2009
&#pound;10 Card Fee or &#pound;10 Tax

What a joke. O'Leary the cheek to moan about a tax and then rips customers off by charging &#pound;10 per person for a debit card that costs pennies to process. Cut your card costs and then you can you can reverse your cutbacks yourself. Stop blaming the rest of the world for your woes and start looking in your own backyard. Start becoming user friendly and try embracing the trade might help as well. Your neighbours Easyjet manage it and are doing well we don't hear them bleating on all day but then the trade supports them and they manage to charge &#pound;2.95 TOTAL for a debit card

By Bob Dixon, Friday, June 19, 2009
Tit for tat

Mr O'Leary doesn't entertain ever cutting charges only dreaming up ways to charge more. I don't agree with this tax either but it seems the government are only taking a leaf out of the Ryanair "lets see how much we can screw out of them" handbook!

By Keith Standen, Thursday, June 18, 2009
Throwing stones at Glass houses??

That's pretty rich coming from someone who has created the art of add on fees and charges. Perhaps he would like to reduce those to compensate for the Government tax???

By ian campbell, Thursday, June 18, 2009