Ryanair drop STN-CRL?

[Final 3 Greens]

BBC Five Live just announced that Reuters are saying that Ryanair will stop flights from Stansted to Charleroi in late April.

By coincidence, Stelios Haj-Ioannu was on a 5 Live chat show at the time and his initial reaction implied that it may be sabre rattling.

If you look on the Ryanair site, under the news heading, there is an announcement there and you can draw your own conclusions.

[cwatters]

According to this report from the BBC it seems that the loss of subsidy would mean an increase in ticket price of just 6 to 8 Euro (about £5) on this route.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3490116.stm

Ryanair to axe Charleroi-London


Ryanair was given aid to fly from Charleroi
Budget airline Ryanair is to terminate its route from Brussels Charleroi to London with effect from 29 April.
Earlier this month the European Commission said it would fine the low-cost carrier for receiving illegal incentives to use the Belgian airport.

Ryanair confirmed its route decision had been made in light of the ruling, which it had called "a disaster".

The airline operates eight Charleroi- London flights daily; the cut means a 10% drop in flights from Charleroi.

The airline said it was the first element of its response to the European Commission's recent decision to "increase costs at Charleroi and require that Ryanair's passengers should pay higher fares".

Ryanair will appeal against the decision at the European Court in Luxembourg.

'Bad news'

But while this appeal is under way, there will be reductions in flights and services at Brussels Charleroi, it said, as aircraft capacity is reallocated to other lower cost airports.

Ryanair's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, said: "These capacity reductions are bad news for customers at Brussels Charleroi, but good news for other lower cost airports.

"As the Brussels-London route had the lowest fares, this route cannot be sustained if costs are to be increased as a result of the Commission's decision to increase ticket prices by six to eight euros per ticket."

He said the flights would now operate on routes between private airports such as London Stansted, Glasgow Prestwick, Stockholm Skavsta and London Luton.

The European Commission had ruled some of the hand-outs paid to use Charleroi broke EU law.

Ryanair will have to return about 4m of 15m euros in state aid it received from the local Walloon authorities in Belgium.

Mr O'Leary said Ryanair would soon be meeting with the airport authorities and Wallonia regional government to discuss a way forward.

[mikekilo]

Between Stansted and Charleroi, Ryanair operates 3 flights a day (both ways).... a pretty low frequency considering the two airports are significant bases for Ryanair (are the aircraft used B737-200's or 737-800's?).

I suspect this route had become marginally profitable for Ryanair over last year or so since an increase in ticket prices of 6-8 euros (due to the recent EU ruling say Ryanair) would hardly destroy the viability of a supposedly sucessful route? You would also think economies of scale that these two bases bring would negate any increase in costs Ryanair feels it has to pass onto travellers.

Will be interesting to see if this represents the start of a gradual pullout of Ryanair from CRL...

[LTNman]

The EU ruling adds £3 million to Ryanair's costs and yet Ryanair’s 50p wheelchair tax earns them £12 million. Also Ryanair now charge a credit card fee per passenger and not per booking. Maybe it is Ryanair’s greed that is the problem.

[cwatters]

It would be a shame to see Ryan cut this route - unless they plan to open up a service into a nearby private field (are there any?). I've used this service several times in the past year to make day trips to meetings in the UK and have found the service both affordable and on time.

[Final 3 Greens]

There's always Brussels (North East), aka Eindhoven or Brussels North (Oostende) :D

[Musket90]

They operate B738's on STN - CRL route with CRL based aircraft. Timetable for first daily flight is 0640 arr STN with 0730 dep by same aircraft to CRL. The 0730 dep slot is very precious so it's not one that Ryanair are likely will give up so they'll probably shift at least one of the CRL based aircraft to STN to supplement other routes or introduce a new one.