Ryanair announce winter cut backs

Ryanair announced cut backs in it's winter 2009 schedule which will affect based aircraft at both Dublin and Shannon airports. Blaming the Irish government's €10 travel tax and promising further cut backs if the tax is not rescinded, the airline announced this week that this winter will see :

• A reduction in the Shannon base from 4 to 3 aircraft
• A reduction in the Dublin base from 17 to 16 aircraft
• A cut of 36 flights per week at Shannon
• A cut of 44 flights per week at Dublin
• A knock on loss of 650 airport and tourism jobs
• A consequential loss in tourist expenditure of €750m

100 employees will lose their jobs at Ryanair as a result of the cutbacks. Each aircraft removed creates 50 job losses among flight deck, cabin crew and engineers. The airline's chief executive Michael O'Leary said that all the cuts would be involuntary and that redundancies would not be offered to staff. "We don't do redundancies. You can transfer to one of our other operations, otherwise you can go", he said, adding that the reductions will be reversed if the government scraps the tourism tax but warning that a further 350 jobs could be lost and the Shannon base scrapped altogether if the government did not get rid of the tax. "But I hold out no prospect of this government getting up off it's a**e and making a decision on anything within a month or two. Maybe if lightning struck somewhere in Castleknock or Clara," he said.