Belfast City Airport waves goodbye to Ryanair … for now?
Belfast City Airport will be hoping for better luck in September. Having run a couple of Community Information Days last week that were advertised to 21,000 local homes but only ended up attracting 42 people into the airport terminal to learn more about the airport’s activities and plans for the runway extension, Ryanair broke bad news this morning.
Ryanair don’t do subtle gestures, and in the case of the city airport they’re pulling their aircraft off the local tarmac from 1 November, ceasing the routes to Bristol, East Midlands, Liverpool, London Stansted and Prestwick from 31 October.
At this morning’s press conference in the Europa Hotel, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said:
It is very disappointing that the promised runway extension at Belfast City Airport has still not materialised more than three years after we opened the base at Belfast City.
It makes no sense for Ryanair to continue to invest in Belfast City, operating restricted routes with less than full payloads between Belfast and other UK airports (which suffer a double APD penalty) unless there is clear and immediate prospect of Ryanair being enabled to safely operate longer European routes from Belfast City Airport and for this we need the runway extension.
The journey towards a public inquiry looking at the proposed runway extension has been a long drawn out process, that was delayed again in August.
It’s unlikely that O’Leary’s intervention will speed up the process. More likely it’ll encourage easyJet to continue their bargaining between Belfast International and Belfast City airports and perhaps shift more flights down from Aldergrove to the harbour.
The airport’s Business Development Director, Katy Best said she was disappointed at Ryanair’s decision. However:
Ryanair’s announcement will not divert us in pursuing the continued development of the airport. Our goal still remains to attract new airlines and new destinations to and from Belfast City Airport resulting in a much needed economic boost for the region.
The extension would add 590 metres to the Holywood end of the runway would allow the existing aircraft to fly fully laden with passengers and fuel, offering destinations further afield in mainland Europe. The physical layout of the current airport site means that the longer runway wouldn’t attract larger aircraft. The City Airport’s current planning constraint means it can operate no more than 48,000 flights each year. Last year they managed 39,328 flights carrying 2.60 million passengers; in 2008 they peaked at 42,998 flights for 2.56 million people.
While community and campaign groups like Belfast City Airport Watch Ltd have voiced concerns and actively fought against the extension, their demands seem to stop short of requesting a radical cutback in the airport’s operations – eg, halving the current flight limit. Perhaps the local jobs at stake make that an ask too far?
Sinn Féin’s local East Belfast representative Niall Ó Donnghaile commented:
While I’m sure many residents will not be mourning the apparent loss of Ryanair, I think this move by Michael O’Leary is an extremely retrograde step and will only punish Ryanair workers as well as the local economy and air travel commuters.
Dawn Purvis MLA reacted to Ryanair’s announcement:
While it is regrettable, it is not surprising, Mr O’Leary has long made his views known regarding the democratic right of the people of East Belfast to lodge their objections and lobby their elected representatives against a runway extension which would add to the already nuisance levels of noise and other forms of pollution. Mr O’Leary probably needs reminded that we live in a democratic country not a fascist state where profit is more important than the health and well being of its citizens.
My major concern in all of this is that Mr O’Leary’s ‘hissy fit’ does not cost jobs, I hope he has the decency to ensure that these employees can be redeployed elsewhere within Ryan Air operations.
Update – In July, Ryanair announced a three-month suspension of flights from Bournemouth airport between 1 November 2010 and 31 January 2011, citing the government’s £11 tourist tax. Are the effects of the economic downturn being used to make a different political point in each region affected? Other quotes from politicians, organisations and community representatives can be found on the BBC’s round-up page.
Topic: Society and Culture
Region: Northern Ireland
Surely it is ridiculous not to allow the runway extension if only on the grounds of safety. The limit on the number of flights allowed from the airport would itself ensure that there is only a slight increase in movements.
If you had any idea of the total incompetance of the “Ports & Airports” branch of the DRD you would have no problem in understanding this decision.
Yet again I put the blame for this squarely with Mr. Murphy’s Dept. of “[edited] & Dim-wits”
does it not seem to anyone else that O’Leary might be trying to call the airport’s and government’s bluff?
I’m not sure but it doesn’t seem likely to me that Ryanair would pull out of NI altogether.
Anyone know what percentage of the city airport’s business is generated by Ryanair as compared to the other airlines that fly from there?
One estimate was that 800,000 passengers flew with Ryanair via Belfast City last year – so around a third of their passengers.
‘we live in a democratic country not a fascist state’
Oh, really?
Not what we want to be hearing from a member of PAC whose job it is to question why testimony from the likes of Declan Gormley is ‘airbrushed’ from an IRT report.
Looks to me like he had a little crossed out stick man stitched to the front of his jacket.
On the matter of Ryanair, they’re shit, always have been and always will be and will pull any stroke in the book to avoid their responsibilities (i.e ash cloud disruption compensation).
Dawn Purvis has obviously flown Ryanair in the past and had to pay for airport check-in or something. She’s clearly not a big fan of Mr O’Leary!
That’s an interesting figure. So Paddy could be right.
And it’s pretty impressive given the short time they’ve been there. My hunch would be that they’ve drummed up a lot of new customers rather than just taken them from other operators.
Then Ryanair needs big volumes to make the business plan work…
What I do know is that sitting in a back garden near the shore in Holywood, you can barely hear Flybe, but you are left in no doubt when Ryanair is taking off.
It is said that O’Leary is in it for the money, in his Newsline interview he admitted he has made good money out of his routes from George Best City so I dont believe he will walk away and leave these established routes for another airline to snap up!
O’Leary is a shrewd businessman and this announcement of leaving might well push forward the runway extention because it will hit Belfast economically and the minority that are effected by noise and safety will be forgot about. I hope this does not happen but everyone knows that money is God in this country.
I might add, Paddy, that pulling out of Belfast does not mean pulling out of NI altogether. Belfast and NI are not one and the same.
Ryanair have a successful operation in Derry (which also happens to be in NI), where they’re also getting the runway extension they wanted.
didn’t realise they flew from derry, how does the operation there compare to the one they have in belfast city in passenger numbers and routes?
derry or no derry i would imagine that pulling out of BHD would seriously decrease their passenger numbers and thus revenue, even if some passengers chose to fly from derry most probably wouldnt and would simply move to another carrier.
derry airport’s a nightmare if you don’t drive, public transport links are atrocious (at least they were when i was last there)
although if it’s a case where ryanair can make more money by using that plane somewhere else then i wouldn’t put anything past o’leary, only time will tell i suppose
Of course, Ryanair announced a three-month suspension of flights from Bournemouth airport between 1 November 2010 and 31 January 2011, citing the government’s £11 tourist tax.
Different airport, different reason. Are the effects of the economic downturn being used to make a different political point in each region affected?
How can you think this is a bluff. IF its true that ryanair are making money with half empty flights I’d be much likely to believe O’Leary was throwing a strop and cutting off his nose to spite his face because he is fed up with the endless delays and can make more money flying FULL planes elsewhere.
Besides this would be a shit issue to bluff. It would never work and he knows it. The government here has a track record of failing to take any tough decisions and will continue to do so. Much better to let the country crumble to bits.
I imagine that’s exactly what he is doing…
http://www.eturbonews.com/17265/ryanair-threatens-withdraw-germany-tax-domestic-air-travel-intro
William
I use Ryanair out of Dublin on regular basis-have always been on time and whilst destination airports are often “out of town” gets me there at a price I can afford-in my view has opened up Europe more effectively in the face of legislators whose role was that same opening.
however the £25 parking charge for one day in the long stay car park at Belfast City last week is way way over the top!
The winter months always show a down turn in domestic traffic. If the runway was lengthened Ryanair could fly to winter sun destinations during the winter. It is probably cheaper to park the aircraft rather than run half empty flights to east midlands and bristol etc.
I’ve just looked at their flights – the flights to-and-from London have been crossed out from mid-September onwards!
They’ve been doing it all over the place as this piece points out
http://airobserver.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/ryanair-a-funny-company/
“Ryanair is really one of the funniest companies to cover. When I started AirObserver, I had just planned to follow aviation in general and more precisely, the competition between low cost and legacy airlines. However, the more I looked into the inner working of this industry, the more I started to notice all of Ryanir’s contradictions, ambiguities and plain non-sense. Once more, I’d like to bring up a funny observation. Last October, I wrote an article entitled Ryanair pulls a fast one on Shannon Airport, in which I talked about Ryanair’s failure in honoring its contract with the SAA (Shannon Airport Authority) nor its responsibilities. Basically, Ryanair’s wasn’t able to bring in the number of passenger it had agreed on and instead, came up with a smart pretext to walk away from its responsibilities. The airline asked Shannon to reduce its airport fees, to increase its financial support, threatening to pull 75% of its routes out of Shannon, if the airport disagreed. (Sounds familiar to me: Angouleme, Alghero, Poitiers, and Granada Airport… !)
So here we are, Shannon Airport couldn’t meet Ryanair demands and Ryanair slashed 75% of its traffic, before the end of its contract, which actually runs till next April.”
Wouldn’t be surprised if there was a senior civil servant somewhere advising this course of action. Wouldn’t be the first time after all….
Who’s going to miss them? As a pretty frequent flyer I only go with Ryanair if everyone else is booked and I really must travel. But otherwise I find the entire experience a yellow hued nightmare from beginning to end. Those poundshop interiors, the surly staff, the endless announcements for their ‘delicious’ coffee. Maybe a lot of other passengers are also going with anyone but O’Leary so that it is cutting his margins to ribbons. Plus if it encourages Flybe to up its flights, will anyone care?
(And can someone somewhere tell me why so few people have read the passage in Mark Twain were the huckster persuades his mates to pay to whitewash his aunt’s wall. O’Leary actually charges people to stand for upwards of 20 minutes in a queue at City airport so they can fractionally enter the plane a few seconds before the rest! On the basis there’s always seats as you’ve checked in…)
I’m going for a lie down..
Buget airlines run like clockwork. I’ve never been on one yet that was more than about five minutes taking off or landing. Reliable across the board.
I just find Ryanair to be exploitative of everything, in a way that Stelios, or Jet2, or Flybe aren’t. And THEY land close to the cities the advertise as landing in, rather than some former Soviet airbase 40km outside the name on the ticket.
It’s horses for courses. Sometimes you just identify and enjoy certain airlines and dislike others (KLM and Lufthansa are good, BA and Aer Lingus are OK, Ryanair and German Wings are utterly, utterly vile.
Alan refers (above) to Ryanair pulling out of Bourenmouth in protest at a government’s £11 tax. It’s a bit rich for Michael Ryan to try that line. He needs to wind his neck in.
If there’s the demand someone will service it – probably Flybe and Easyjet.
And the reason that Ryanair wants the extension? Haven’t they derated the power of the engines on their aircraft so they cant take off at Belfast with a full load without a longer runway? Easyjet and FlyBe manage just fine
Yes – the airport confirm that Ryanair passengers made up 31% of last year’s business.
It’s the distance. Domestic flights rarely take off with a full fuel tank as you’re just burning fuel to fly around lots of heavy fuel in your wings when you could instead quickly top up every couple of sectors if you’re not flying too far.
But to go long distance without stopping to fill up, they need to fill up. Easyjet and bmi flights would have the same problem if they wanted to fly further afield than London.
Why won’t Ryanair fly out of Belfast International? The runway lengths there can accommodate jumbo jets. It’s not that too far out of the city compared with some of their destinations or are the International Airport fees not competitve.
It would also mean that they could consolidate their operations and close their Derry operation. This would save the Derry ratepayers £1.5million per year and could put pressure on Road Services to improve the Derry to Belfast route. Kill two birds with one stone.
Cue politicians of various hues yamming on about the “blow” to the economy, and a call for all those nasty residents to stop whinging in a “now time to pull together… ensure no further loss to tourism etc and jobs as result”
It’s soo obvious…
” Michael Ryan” Who he? (don’t think he is in charge of an aeroplane company)
Bad news for the Airport this. And given the impending departure of CEO Brian Ambrose, this is news they could have done without. .
And as if by magic…
This is excellent news, our accountants can no longer force me to use their appalling service and listen to their interminable in-flight announcements, culminating in that d*mn fanfare. Its not hard to be punctual when the scheduled journey times are so ludicrously padded out.
Why? There are other airlines. And plenty looking for new routes.
Maybe because International Airport is a dump?
of course this begs the question about the sustainability of low cost air travel as fuel and environmental costs increase.
what future for our island nation -oops -our offshore region of UK -as air travel costs rise and we search for our space in the new economic order!!!
Whoops.
Michael O’Leary.
I don’t think he’s in charge of a proper airline either.
I understand its not just the distance. Ryanair specify lower power engines to cut fuel usage but it makes the aircraft less flexible on shorter runways
No it dioesnt
Cheerio, Cheerio, Cheerioooooooooooooooo Mr O’Leary
Ive never actually flown by Ryanair.
Im not a big fan of Michael O’Leary……except when hes fighting with people I dont like even more.
Frankly not a big fan of the City airport either and for years I have had the awful feeling that theres an accident waiting to happen. …the planes seem very low when viewed from any high rise building in Belfast.
To some extent Dawn Purvis is playing politics……Ryanair is a good (Irish) target and standing up for the “democratic rights of her constituents” wont cost her a vote.
And of course if Ryanair backs down…that wont cost her a vote either.
So many people running down O’Leary. Simple answer, if you don’t want to fly with Ryanair, don’t! I fly with them because they have probably the newest fleet of aircraft operated by any airline in Europe – O’Leary bought 737s when Boeing couldn’t give them away, Ryanair’s mechanics – I’ve met a few over the years – are obsessive about safety and their fares are very competitive.
To the chap commenting on the noise he hears in his garden in from aircraft taking off, don’t most aircraft take off from runway 22, rather than over Holywood? Does anyone have any data on this? I know the prevailing winds are mostly from the West. Perhaps if the runway was longer, aircraft taking off could do so at slightly lower power settings, reducing noise to below current levels. Perhaps someone with technical know-how might care to comment.
I’m not surprised at the decision to postpone the runway extension and refer the matter to public enquiry, given the recently well publicised ineptitude of our local politicians and civil “servants”. Here’s a thought, why doesn’t PWC or Contracting Out establish a Decision Avoidance Consultancy? It could run the entire NI Public Sector.
Well, normally they do. But not that day. And the wind was north easterly so it was blowing back onto the shore.
It wasn’t me who put the complaint in, btw…
For the main London routes, I think you may find that EasyJet are at least maintaining their summer rotations to Luton. There seems to be a smugness in their comments to the media today. FlyBe (into Gatwick) and BMI (into Heathrow) continue to use Belfast City.
Flybe are already close to duplicating some of the other Ryanair services:
– into Glasgow (Ryanair does Prestwick, which is 20 miles further out-of-town),
– into Manchester (shame about Liverpool, all of 30 miles away, but Manx do Blackpool).
– At the expense of raising Dewi‘s ire, there’s Bristol 40 miles from Cardiff.
Most of us have to travel to and from a hinterland anyway. Here in North London, I’m 35 miles from Stansted and Gatwick, 30 from Luton, going on 25 to Heathrow. So it’s swings-and-roundabouts, except I’ll go to trouble and expense to avoid the Ryanair cattle trucks.
A cynical thought: surely, it’s barely a couple of months since the Dublin motorway went fully operational … Two hours by bus to Dublin Airport? Hmmm?
And if snowstorm @ 5:30 pm thinks BIA is a “dump” (and he’s not far wrong), let him “enjoy” the Ryanair facilities at Dublin. Most of our local routes have some third-world stuff provision. But, then, in the liongo, we’re just the “self-loading freight”.
xwjd
“So many people running down O’Leary. Simple answer, if you don’t want to fly with Ryanair, don’t!”
This assumes that the customers have a perfect knowledge of their options in the first place. Ryanair are quite adept at using the various cognitive biases that customers have to create a false impression that it’s the best deal on offer.
I’ve flown to Belfast a lot from London over the last few years and got into the habit of using Ryanair under the impression that they were the cheapest. Because they’ve cancelled their flights, I’ve had to look at EasyJet today instead and found a few pleasant suprises.
What I didn’t factor in was the degree to which Ryanair engineer the consumer experience in quite a cyncal way. When I thought that Ryanair were so cheap I hadn’t quite grasped the degree to which they were taking the p*** with their add-ons. So the advertised price is – aside from the card-processing fee – the price I actually pay! Who’d have thought that? On top of that, thorough some miracle, Easyjet can process my debit card for a lot less than Ryanair.
There were lots of other pleasant surprises as well. Ryanair work on that marketing strategy that says ‘don’t make it easy for them – make them work for the great deal we’re offering’. So it’s a bloody awful website that isn’t usable – no ‘usability’ around printing of boarding passes, a generally clunky interface that takes ages to get through, and so on.
I also wonder if EasyJet will insist that I’m standing in a queue for a full hour before the plane is due to leave?
So I’ve got a flight cheaper than I would have expected from Ryanair and haven’t been routinely annoyed in the process. If the flight is more comfortable or the service is less f**k-you when I make the journey, that will be a further bonus.
With a bit of luck, a different airline will pick up Ryanair’s slots and we’ll all be better off. If that makes travel to Belfast more enjoyable, then the NI economy will benefit as well. Win win all round!
Don’t hold your breath waiting for any other airline to pick up the Ryanair routes in the winter
a fellow i work with is lost, he had flights book to london (daddy and son football) i do not think airlines should be able to do this, they should have to take all the people they have booked on there flight.
Breezer – just over 50% (between 53% and 55% in recent months) of flights take off or land over the Lough. BCA publish statistics on their website.
At the time they opened up in Belfast City, Ryanair had negotiated a better (ie, more discounted) landing charge than was possible up at Belfast International. This seemed to be part of the reason for easyJet dipping their toe in the Belfast City marketplace and running a Luton flight from there.
“From early in November, Ryanair will switch its one Belfast City based aircraft to another European airport, with the loss of 50 Ryanair jobs (all staff will be offered relocation elsewhere in the UK or Europe) and the loss of 1 million passengers annually, which will result in the loss of up to 1,000 support jobs in and around Belfast City Airport. Sadly passengers to/from all Belfast airports will now pay much higher fares to travel to/from the UK with other airlines.”
Filed to the London Stock Exchange by Ryanair today.
“And given the impending departure of CEO Brian Ambrose, this is news they could have done without”
Hadn’t heard this?
What’s the colour of your elephants?
In a way, Breezer @ 5:49 pm gave the “reason”.
The Ryanair fleet is entirely 737-800s. That makes economic sense, having just one model to service and maintain.
737-800s have a capacity, as Ryanair usually fly them, of 189 one-class seats. Fully laden, the 737-800 weighs 174,200lb. I’ve got in front of me the master planning document for Rhode Island Airport Corporation. This seems to show that a 737-800 requires a 7,200ft runway.
The present runway at Belfast City is about 6,000 feet in length.
That is why Ryanair’s flights are restricted to 140 seats. That is why Ryanair want the extra 600 metres (which would then be similar to the longer runway at Aldergrove.
Usually the aircraft goes to and from the runway. What Ryanair seem to be asking is that the runway be brought to their aircraft.
But, of course, at no significant cost to the airline. The cost would be to the owners (ABN AMRO is a partly-nationalized Dutch Bank), who would doubtless be expecting a hand-out from DRDNI (which means the tax-payer). Any loss of further amenity and domestic enjoyment falls on the local residents: Victoria Park gets it worst, Kinnegar, Inverary, Sydenham, Connswater and Ballymacarret not so far behind. We are talking about 160,000+ of the Belfast urban area being subject to significant noise pollution.
For why? There is that perfectly good 9,000ft+ runway, considerably under-employed, a dozen miles out of the centre of town. Moreover, a direct rail link is there for the asking.
As Clare Short said of the politicians of Montserrat, “they’ll be asking for golden elephants next.”
Malcolm.you forgot garnerville and ect. i use a airport quite a lot aldergrove will do me