This is the usual Ryanair grandstanding - blaming the BAA, Stansted the UK Government and even having a pop at Dublin in their press release. Yes the tax does hurt demand but its the same for all airlines and as ryanair says lowest cost wins so if you add 10GBP to each ticket Ryanair should still be the cheapest and if the cheapest wins then there should be no issue for Ryanair. I know that as prices rise demand will fall etc
Before when they pulled out of airports / reduced capacity they used to say...due to management incompetence at airport X we have moved 3 planes etc top to airport Y. Now the planes are just grounded showing that the true reason is no demand anywhere. I have heard them go on and on about governments in Greece/Spain/Holland/Belgium dropping taxes or lowering airport fees and how Ireland and the UK should follow. Well how come Ryanair havnt opened a huge base in any of these countries recently? No Demand - simple explanation.