RYANAIR PLANS to further scale down its operations at Dublin and Shannon airports this winter as a protest against the Government’s €10 air travel tax.
Chief executive Michael O’Leary said the airline would remove one aircraft from both Dublin and Shannon for its winter schedule, which starts in October.
This will result in 100 Ryanair jobs being lost at the airports. Ryanair has already taken five aircraft out its schedule at Dublin airport this year, with the loss of 250 jobs.
This winter it will operate 16 aircraft from Dublin and three from Shannon.
Ryanair has yet to announce which services will be cut. Mr O’Leary said additional cutbacks are likely in the coming months.
“The base in Shannon could close altogether and Dublin could face the loss of one or two extra aircraft this winter,” Mr O’Leary explained.
“This is just the start of it. There are going to be more cutbacks in July and August as tourist numbers collapse.”
Mr O’Leary said the move was prompted by the Government’s decision to introduce the travel tax in March 30th.
He described this decision as “crazy”, “stupid” and “tourism suicide” and said he had written yesterday to the Ministers for Finance and Transport and the Taoiseach asking them to abolish the tax.
“This [tax] is already devastating Irish tourism,” Mr O’Leary claimed, adding that passenger traffic at Dublin had declined by 11 per cent in the first five months of this year.
According to Mr O’Leary, the travel tax will result in about 1.25 million fewer tourists visiting Ireland this year, with a loss to the economy of €750 million, which includes about €150 million in VAT receipts.
The Government has estimated that the travel tax will yield it about €125 million a year in revenue. “If ever there was a tax that was self-defeating it’s this one,” he added.
Mr O’Leary said Ryanair would reverse the cuts if the Government changed its mind on the travel tax.
In the interim, he said Ryanair’s growth would be focused on its bases in continental Europe.
The airline expects to grow its passenger numbers by nine million this year. “We would like Ireland to participate in this rapid growth,” he said.
Mr O’Leary said staff in Dublin and Shannon affected by the cutbacks could seek to transfer to other bases in Europe, but no redundancy would be paid by the airline. “We don’t do redundancy,” he explained.
In response to the Ryanair announcement, the Shannon Airport Authority (SAA) said it was “disappointed” by Ryanair’s decision.
“Ryanair is a valued partner at Shannon airport and we hope that services will be restored in the future,” the SAA said.
A spokesman for the Dublin Airport Authority said: “The DAA is always disappointed when an airline decides to reduce its operations at the airport.”
Ryanair said it expects to carry about 8.3 million passengers at Dublin this year, down from 10.8 million in 2008.
It expects to handled 800,000 at Shannon, compared with 1.2 million last year.
