It is not always easy, even possible, to learn from the airline the real cause of any delay. That is necessary to make any claim correctly. I've heard from various friends on more than one occasion that ATC or weather was given as the reason for a diversion and/or subsequent delay: one in the case where the return flight a/c never arrived but diverted before making an approach or holding. They were stuck for 3 days and told it was weather and not the fault of the airline. I'm not sure if the court case has finished as they later discovered this reason not to be correct. Correct information is vital and powerful.

"Restructuring the debt" they call it in politics. EU has no choice but to restructure Greek debts, Ryanair agreed to do the same in relation to its agreement with Thessaloniki Tourism Organization. As a result the marketing support for 2012, still unpaid, will be reduced from 350,000 to 250,000 EUR and the flights can continue for the time-being. The negotiations concerning next year will follow.

The good times at BUD have come to an end. Third of routes to be cut over increase in landing and handling charges. Full details on Thursday.

BUD
 

Yeah. Having sold tens of thousands extremely low fare tickets on BUD routes (as a costly marketing investment in a way), having built their position there, now we'll observe far too familiar reaction. Next dispute, disagreement, once again retreating, at least partially so far... somewhat chaotic approach.

I wonder what Wizzair's reaction would be to that? I'd say probably very little if anything, they've grown quite a lot in BUD themselves and they to like the lowest landing fees so perhaps won't be too pleased themselves. I would say despite flying 3x daily, that the Stansted route will not be cut as the frequency is now on par with Wizzair's service to Luton and would probably want to keep their share of the London route.


Edit:

Routes to cut from 30 to 20, including the ending of:

Baden Baden
Birmingham
Dusseldorf
Malaga
Munich

Above destinations for the winter said to be "uneconomic".

& Lübeck, Bologna, Oslo, Cracow, Thessaloniki.

3 based aircraft instead of 5, frequency cuts on 9 of the remaining flights.

There is nor real direct overlap with any of those airports with Wizz, besides a good few of them are from airports which are not served by Wizz full stop.

The fact is some of those routes are getting axed not because of the charges, but because of the load factor was very low, I know Krakow was around 35% a good number of times, occasionally higher.

BHX-BUD
 

DublinPole

And back in the real world: -

BHX-BUD

Source of the passenger figures - CAA

April 2367 pax - average 148 per flight or 78%
May 2584 pax - average 144 per flight or 76%
June 2891 pax - average 161 per flight or 85%
July 2676 pax - average 167 per flight or 88%
August 3120 pax - average 173 per flight or 92%
September 2831 pax - average 157 per flight or 83%
October 2975 pax - average 165 per flight or 87%

Now if you said fares were low them I might agree but I am interested where you got 50% from. The figures above assume that all flights operated.

Pete

Must be bad data I got, so apologies for that

The Krakow data is certainly correct though, couple of my friends used it and it was always very empty it's been discussed by others on a Polish forum saying pretty much the same thing
Ryanair: Koniec Krakw - Budapeszt (1) - Pasazer.com

Someone even remarked they saw the flight on occasions with no hold luggage at all!!

BUD-KRK loads
 

DublinPole is absolutely right about BUD-KRK. Budapest airport publishes monthly data here: http://www.bud.hu/english/business-a...ines-9082.html

The average flown loads on BUD-KRK from February to October have been 36%, 48%, 54%, 50%, 44%, 36%, 37%, 37%, 44%. It's only a short hop, but with such low loads, Ryanair would need very decent yields in order for the route to be profitable.

I can also confirm OltonPete's figures for BHX-BUD. Loads certainly haven't been a problem on that route.

Budapest cuts
 

Cancellations and reduction from January 2013.
Cancelled routes already noted here.
Reductions on the routes:
- Barcelona (BCN)
- Brussels-Charleroi (CRL)
- Dublin (DUB)
- Madrid (MAD)
- Paris-Beauvais (BVA)
- Rome-Ciampino (CIA)
- Venice-Treviso (TSF)
- Warsaw-Modlin (WMI)

Certainly a big step towards "world leadership" mol promised in hungarian press in August.

BUD
 

Tampere 33% reduction as well.

Allright, they forget to mention that during the presentation then :=
Shots of the Powerpoint in this video:

I love Hungarian language. I really do! :ok:

Ryanair will return to Strasbourg. Yes, the same airport it quitted many, many years ago, remember?
Two first destinations will be STN and Porto, from April 2013.

Bescause AF through its BritAir subsidary bitched and FR got of grief for cancelling the route.

Funny when Britair cancelled London to Strasbourg the media were all quiet as were Prooners.

Third new Ryanair route for Stansted already. Looking good for 2013 so far and hopefully many more new ones to come. I think if I remember correctly, there were 11 new ones for 2012 and only 3 were axed at Stansted.

Strasbourg
 

Is this due to an increase in capacity (either through a increase in STN / OPO based aircraft or via aircraft based elsewhere) or is it simply because other underperforming routes served by STN based aircraft have been culled / reduced instead ?

Went to Strasbourg (by train) several years ago - lovely place in the summer.

Ryanair is introducing a 2% credit card fee in addition to the £6 administration fee for all bookings made from tomorrow. This is to comply with the OFT ruling earlier this year which said airline fees must be more transparent.