Ryanair downsizes at Frankfurt Hahn; to cut 30% of flights, 1 million pax and 1000 jobs

Ryanair announced (27-Oct-2010) plans to cut 30% of flights resulting in the loss of 1 million passengers at its Frankfurt Hahn base from summer 2011 following the introduction of the German Government's EUR8 tourist tax. The carrier confirmed it is "not closing our business in Hahn" adding: "We're just saying that we have 1 million passengers there who are not willing to pay EUR8 more per ticket." Details include:

• Aircraft: The carrier will reduce its fleet in summer 2011 from eight to 11 based aircraft. The carrier will more the three aircraft to Ryanair bases outside Germany;
• Traffic: Ryanair handled 3.9 million passengers in summer 2010 which is is estimated to reduce to 2.9 million in summer 2011 equating to a loss of 1 million passengers;
• Services: The carrier will reduce its network from 532 to less than 380 weekly services;
• Routes: The carrier will close nine routes from Frankfurt Hahn to Agadir, Berlin (from 10-Jan-2011), Gdansk, Gothenburg, Klagenfurt, Prague, Santiago de Compostela, Seville and Wroclaw while 15 other routes will suffer reduced frequencies. The carrier operated 54 routes to/from Hahn in summer 2010 with this to be reduced to 45 in summer 2011;
• Jobs: Ryanair stated the move will lead to the loss of 1000 jobs at Hahn including 150 Ryanair pilots and cabin crew jobs.

Ryanair stated the tax makes Germany an "uncompetitive tourist destination at a time when many other EU Goverments (including Holland, Belgium, Greece and Spain) have eliminated tourist taxes altogether and/or reduced airport charges, in some cases to zero, in order to grow traffic and tourism". [more]

The German Government plans to raise EUR1 billion p/a by taxing air passengers between EUR8 an EUR45 per flight (Reuters, 27-Oct-2010). German airlines' association BDF has stated it expects 10,000 jobs to move internationally and German passenger volumes to drop by 5 million per year as a result of the tax.

Ryanair: "The German Government's EUR8 tourist tax will do significant damage to traffic and tourism in Germany next year. International experience shows that tourist taxes have caused substantial traffic collapse in both Ireland and the UK this year and we believe that this ill-advised EUR8 tourist tax will do similar damage to German tourism and jobs," Michael Cawley, spokesman. Source: Company Statement, 27-Oct-2010.