Ryanair to pull more routes

RYANAIR said it will pull more routes from the country’s larger airports and relocate to smaller bases such as Kerry and Knock.

The airline’s chief executive Michael O’Leary said Ryanair will also likely remove more routes from Ireland and Britain over the next few years in favour of cheaper locations across Europe.

“You will see a big shift of traffic out of Ireland and the UK,” he said.

Last week Ryanair announced that it was switching routes to Alicante and Faro from Shannon to Kerry and Knock airports from next summer.

It blamed high costs at Shannon for the decision.

“You will see tumbleweed rolling on the runway at Shannon Airport,” said Mr O’Leary.

Bloxham analyst Joe Gill said it will be difficult for larger airports to compete with smaller ones which have a lower cost base.

“The larger airports form part of the DAA which is challenged by significant debts due to its extensive infrastructure programme, especially in Cork and Dublin,” he said.

Kerry and Knock will best placed to win traffic from the larger airports because they can handle Boeing 737 type equipment, according to Mr Gill.

“The future for airports like Galway, Sligo and Waterford is more difficult,” he added.

Ryanair accounted for 60% of the three million passengers that used Shannon last year.

From March next year it will have just one aircraft based in Shannon. From this time it will operate eight routes from the airport including Stansted, Gatwick, Paris Beauvais and Malaga.

As well as the new routes to Alicante and Faro Kerry Airport has direct flights to Dublin, Stansted, London Luton and Frankfurt Hahn with Ryanair. This compares with just five routes from Cork.