BA withdraws several Irish services

British Airways is to withdraw from several routes including some of its Dublin and Belfast routes as part of a cost-cutting exercise.

The airline will cease flights at also Cardiff and Leeds Bradford airports as part of its cost-cutting exercise, it was announced today.

The airline will be withdrawing from 21 routes from next March.

The announcement affects 82 BA staff at Cardiff and 59 at Leeds Bradford, although the airline said it hoped that job losses would be kept to a minimum through employees transferring to other positions.

The new-look regional services will mean that for the first time, BA will operate from London City Airport – launching services to Frankfurt, Paris and Glasgow in April.

And BA is also planning to introduce three new routes and extra capacity out of Manchester in the new year.

BA’s subsidiary British Airways CitiExpress, which was operating the Cardiff and Leeds Bradford services, will operate the new flights at London City Airport.

As part of the new arrangement, BA CitiExpress is transferring its 12-strong fleet of 29-seater Jetstream 41s to independently-owned UK airline Eastern Airways which plans to operate routes from Leeds Bradford to Aberdeen, Southampton and Isle of Man; and from Newcastle to Birmingham, Aberdeen and Southampton.

Services withdrawn by the end of March include:

:: Cardiff to Brussels, Aberdeen, Belfast, Jersey and Paris.

:: Leeds Bradford to Dublin, Aberdeen, Bristol, Southampton, Isle of Man and Gatwick.

:: Newcastle to Aberdeen, Birmingham, Dublin and Southampton.

:: Belfast to Aberdeen and the Isle of Man.

:: Southampton to Aberdeen, Dublin and the Isle of Man.

:: Aberdeen to Bristol.

BA’s UK business general manager David Evans said: “As part of our own regional future size and shape review in April we said that we needed to simplify and strengthen our business.

“One of the key challenges in achieving a more efficient business is in reducing the number of different types of aircraft we have in our fleet.

“Accelerating our move to an all jet fleet will help improve our operational and financial performance in the coming years.

He added: “The proposed withdrawal of all services from Cardiff and Leeds Bradford has been a tough decision to take but it was crucial to underpin the rest of the operation as we move forward.