AS DAA 40% COST INCREASE AND €10 TAX DEVASTATE TOURISM
:astonished::astonished::astonished:
21 January 2010Ryanair, Dublin Airport's largest airline, today (21 Jan 10) confirmed that it will further reduce its flights and traffic at Dublin Airport this summer by up to 20% as high and rising DAA airport charges and the Govt's €10 tourist tax continue to devastate Irish traffic and tourism. 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.
The DAA's high costs, and the Govt's €10 tourist tax have caused Dublin Airport's traffic to collapse by 3m passengers in 2009 (during a year when Ryanair grew elsewhere by 8m passengers). Already this winter, Dublin Airport has suffered the loss of British Airways, Malev and Budget Travel in addition to BMI's Heathrow cutbacks.
Ryanair regrets the Govt's response to this tourism collapse which was to order the Aviation Regulator to approve up to 40% increases in the DAA's already high fees from 2010 onwards, to help the near bankrupt DAA pay for its unneeded and over specified €1.2bn T2, which has cost 6 times more than the €200m originally promised by the DAA.
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 Ryr 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 Govt's 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 - see table below) for Irish people who simply want to get away for a sun holiday. These additional peak summer flights will take up much of the summer sun capacity lost as a result of the recent closure of Budget Travel and other tour operators, whose business at Dublin has collapsed under the DAA's high fees.
Ryanair will grow by over 7m passengers to 73m this year but all this expansion is taking place at EU airports and countries where Govts 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.
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