From today's Sunday Times:
Ryanair in legal row over airport shutdown
Fiona McGoran
MANCHESTER airport is threatening to sue Ryanair for losses incurred on August 15 when one of the budget airline's 737 planes burst two tyres.
In a letter to the operator, the airport claimed the incident meant it had to close for seven hours. No figures were mentioned as to how much this cost the airport.
Ryanair refutes the claim and a spokesman said the technical difficulty resulted in the airport closing only one of its two runways.
Emergency services at the airport were put on full alert when the tyres burst on Ryanair flight FR552 travelling from Dublin, forcing the plane to halt.
The passengers were taken by coach to the terminal building, while emergency services carried out a full inspection of the runway and the damaged tyres. The aircraft remained on site until it was fitted with new tyres.
Ryanair said much of the delay was caused by the airport, which tried an experimental technique to remove the 737. Its failure to do so led to most of the delay.
Manchester airport said it was policy not to comment on legal matters.
Two days after the Manchester incident, a Ryanair flight to Glasgow had to return to Dublin after developing an oil leak on take-off.
Michael O'Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, said such incidents were "not unusual" in the context of a busy schedule of 300 flights taking off every day, or 9,000 flights a month.
The Irish Aviation Authority said "these things happen", and noted that the airline's safety record was good.
On August 9, a Ryanair plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Dublin airport after engine failure en route to London Stansted.
In a separate incident, several Ryanair passengers were stranded in Paris after their scheduled evening flight from Beauvais airport was delayed because of technical difficulties.
As for fares: I rarely pay more than £29.50 each way STN-PIK and often it's £4.50. I've had it as low as 50p on occasion!!