February 22, 2012

Airport bosses have dismissed the scale of the aviation job losses that Ryanair boss, Michael O’Leary, has alleged will be caused by the cutting of some services at Edinburgh Airport.

Ryanair announced this week that it would be cutting five services to the Scottish capital after talks broke down with the airport’s owner, BAA, over a reduction in charges.

O’Leary alleged that the cuts would cost the airport around 300,000 passengers every year and 300 airline and ground crew jobs. BAA, however, has said it has no idea where he found those numbers and other aviation analysts have dismissed his claims as erroneous and “scaremongering”.

BAA said Ryanair was just one of 40 operators that use Edinburgh airport, so the scale of the impact would be nowhere near the alleged level. According to the Scottish Daily Record, one of the five routes had already been axed prior to Ryanair's announcement and three others had not yet even started flying.

A BAA spokesman said, “We don’t recognise that figure and we don’t understand where it has come from.”

The managing director of Edinburgh Airport, Jim O’Sullivan, said Ryanair was refusing to pay certain costs that other airlines had to pay, and the airport would not be tolerating that. He explained, “We cannot accept their wish to not pay the agreed air traffic control costs that all other airlines pay.”

Aviation analyst, Laurie Price, told the newspaper, “This is a bit of kite flying, scaremongering or posturing from a very canny, very clever airline operator.”