Ryanair Has Cancelled 17 Routes from Dublin Airport
Ryanair has cancelled 17 routes from Dublin Airport this winter including Genoa, Palermo, and the Christmas market favourite city of Nuremburg.
Ryanair has cancelled 17 routes from Dublin Airport this winter. It released a video on social media outlining four main reasons for its decision.
Eddie Wilson, CEO of Ryanair:
“It is regrettable that Ryanair is announcing 17 route cuts and the removal of 19 “Gamechanger” enviro-friendly aircraft this Winter at Dublin because there are no incentives at Dublin to grow traffic or reward investment in aircraft with lower CO2 and noise emissions”.
“Unlike most other EU airports, the daa is unfortunately focused on increasing passenger charges by 45% and wasting €250m on a tunnel the same size as the Dublin Port tunnel that is not needed,” he said
“Daa needs to build low-cost infrastructure to support passenger growth and connectivity but has failed to implement a growth incentive scheme or indeed lower charges that reward those airlines who invest in lower emission aircraft,” he added.
Ryanair will now move these 19 aircraft to other airports across the EU that incentivise airlines that grow passenger numbers using lower CO2 emitting and quieter aircraft.
In an interview with Pat Kenny on Newstalk, Eddie Wilson said that ” charges are increasing by 45% in Dublin airport when they are going down elsewhere in Europe. We are not cancelling 17 routes because we got the sums wrong”. “We will not allocate growth to an airport that is putting up its charges by 45%”.
When asked by Pat Kenny if some of these routes were going to be cancelled anyway, Eddie Wilson confirmed that Ryanair “flights from Dublin airport this winter will be 10% down on last year”.
Mr Wilson also confirmed that he wrote to Minister Eamon Ryan three times requesting that an environmental scheme be implemented to reward airlines for using environmentally friendly aircraft.
What routes are Ryanair cancelling from Dublin airport?
The newly introduced route to Genoa in Italy, which is a popular choice for visitors to the Cinque Terre has unfortunately been cancelled, as has the Italian city of Palermo.
Nuremberg in Germany, a popular Christmas market break destination, is likely to have an impact on the many travellers who have already booked a festive break, and Santiago in Spain may have an impact on those planning to walk the Camino this winter.
Read: 12 Christmas markets in Europe to visit this year
The full list of cancellations as per Eoghan Corry:
- Carcassonne
- Nuremburg
- Billund
- Bournemouth
- Castellón
- Genoa
- Klagenfurt
- Košice
- Leipzig
- Asturias
- Plovdiv
- Palanga
- Palermo
- Sibiu
- Santiago
- Suceava
- Szczecin
In a statement from Dublin Airport: “The daa, the operator of Dublin Airport , has categorically denied false claims by Ryanair that airport charges at Dublin Airport will increase by 45% next year. Regulated charges at Dublin Airport, which are set by the aviation regulator, the IAA (formerly CAR), and not daa, are set to increase by only 6% in 2024”.
Kenny Jacobs, daa’s CEO said:
“I am surprised and disappointed that Ryanair would seek to reconfigure its based aircraft at Dublin Airport this winter when they could pay even lower ultra-low cost charges if they choose to avail of the suite of sustainability incentives we have proposed for 2024. I am baffled why any airline with sustainability ambitions would choose to turn down the opportunity to operate lower CO₂ emission and less noisy aircraft at Dublin Airport by turning down the new discount schemes. The Ryanair decision to reduce their MAX fleet at Dublin Airport next winter is adding to their cost base when by actually increasing the MAX fleet they would in fact pay even less in 2024 that they will in 2023.”
“Ryanair’s claim of a 45% increase in charges in 2024 is FALSE. As Ryanair knows well, the aeronautical charges at Dublin Airport are regulated by the IAA who set the maximum level of charges at Dublin Airport. There is nothing approaching a 45% proposed in pricing at Dublin Airport which is patently false for anyone who has studied the regulators’ determination last December.
“Rather than depending on back of a scratch card mathematics, I would urge those making such false statements, to redo their sums and more importantly study the range of sustainability incentives proposed at Dublin Airport and join us on the journey to a carbon free aviation eco-system over the coming years.
“Ryanair’s claim that Dublin Airport offers no incentives to airlines is also FALSE. A traffic recovery scheme is in place at Dublin Airport that has worked incredibly well and has facilitated the speedy 100% bounce back in activity at Dublin Airport post-Covid. This scheme will remain in place for another 6 months, including the winter period that Ryanair is focused on. As the biggest beneficiary of the TRSS scheme, we can understand why Ryanair would like to see it remain in place beyond next March, but we are happy that Dublin Airport’s growth has recovered to pre-pandemic levels and we do not need to incentivise new growth given Dublin Airport has a planning capacity limit of 32 million passengers per annum.
“Ryanair’s claim that daa has no plan to invest in new and better infrastructure at Dublin Airport is FALSE. daa has already announced significant capital infrastructure ambitions for both Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport and the details of these will be in our Infrastructure Application which will be made to Fingal County Council before the end of this year.
“Ryanair’s claim that an underpass is not needed at Dublin Airport is, once again, FALSE. The Underpass is essentially a safety project, which will contribute to effective and efficient airfield operations and maintain operations in the West Apron. We have reviewed all options, including solutions in place at other European airports, and both the aviation regulator and daa agree the underpass solution is the optimum one from a safety perspective and we never compromise on safety.”
daa announced on May 19th this year (https://www.daa.ie/daa-
