It’s been a devastating week for Northern Ireland and its tourism economy with Ryanair pulling out of both the George Best Belfast City Airport and the Belfast International Airport.
The budget airline is placing blame squarely on the UK government and NI Executive anr their refusal to tackle the issue of Air passenger duty fees, a fee which airlines must pay per customer. The fee, which can range from £13 to £180, was blamed in Ryanair’s recent press release, along with a lack of Covid recovery plans within both Northern Irish airports. In a statement, the airline said “the UK government’s refusal to suspend or reduce air passenger duty and the lack of Covid recovery incentives from both Belfast airports” was why they would relocate “to lower cost airports in the UK and Europe”.
The 4th largest carrier of seats were scheduled to operate 143 flights from Northern Ireland and offer over 27,000 seats this winter (November 2021 – March 2022)(Data produced by Cirium). Ryanair had already pulled out of City of Derry Airport back in 2020.
Questions have been raised with the NI Executive and the Department of Economy on what plans will be made around this to ensure other airlines do not follow suit.
NI Travel News are still awaiting response from the Executive on the issue.
