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Ryanair to slash Manchester flights
Ryanair is to switch or close nine of its 10 routes from Manchester Airport.
The changes will take effect from October 1 and will result in the loss of 44 weekly flights and up to 600 local jobs.
The airline said most affected flights would be switched to East Midlands, Leeds Bradford, and Liverpool airports.
The nine routes from Manchester that will close are to Barcelona (Girona), Bremen, Brussels (Charleroi), Cagliari, Dusseldorf (Weeze), Frankfurt (Hahn), Marseille, Milan (Bergamo) and Shannon.
Ryanair blamed high airport charges for its decision, although the airport disputed this.
Last month, the no-frills carrier announced it would cut flights from London Stansted by 30% over the winter period for the same reason.
Ryanair claimed it had offered to launch an additional 28 weekly flights at Manchester if the airport had agreed to reduce its charges, but the offer was rejected.
A Manchester Airport spokesperson said: “Not withstanding all of our investment in Manchester Airport including during the current recession, we don’t believe that charges as low as £3 per passenger are unreasonable. Clearly, Ryanair do and that’s regrettable.
“We’ve consistently cut our charges for the last 15 years even when faced with increased costs such as security.
“Passengers will still be able to travel directly to the majority of the destinations affected by choosing other airlines."
Ryanair said passengers affected by the changes would be e-mailed and given a full refund, or the choice of flying to some destinations from East Midlands, Leeds Bradford and Liverpool.
By Bev Fearis
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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