Ryanair threaten to cut services at Alicante (again)

 

Ryanair has threatened to cut the number of flights out of Alicante's El Altet airport by 80% after this summer, following the disagreement over the use of airbridges at the terminal. Only last week a court ruled that it was safe for passenger to disembark on foot at the new terminal - but only during the winter months.

AENA insist that the airlines passengers must use the airbridges provided for safety reasons, however, Ryanair will be charged €2 million per year for this service - a cost they say must ultimately be met by the passengers and reflected in the ticket prices.

Stephen McNamara, Spokesman for Ryanair commented how this change to procedures effectively broke the contract that the airline has with the airport.

Operations at the airport will be scaled back, but not cut completely as "This way one will be able to see the impact of the abusive decision by AENA to force Ryanair to use and pay for the costly and unnecessary airbridges." The effect of the reduction of services will be monitored for 12 months to assess the impact on business - or until AENA relent and allow passengers to disembark on foot - as previously, and as agreed.

"Until now we have been boarding passengers in this way at El Altet airport with no problem and use this method in more than 140 airports in Spain and Europe all year round," McNamara commented.

Interestingly, this beligerence by Ryanair seems to bear out the predictions we made on Wednesday - click Here for that news story.