Exclusive! – RyanAir to pull out of Alicante

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary threatens to pull out of Alicante unless AENA ‘stops it abuse’.

Following AENA Alicante’s decision last week to force Ryanair to use airbridges, Ryanair, the Irish budget airline, has announced that it plans to make cuts of up to 80% to the number of flights operating at Alicante airport. That will mean a drop of over four hundred flights per week that will not be coming to use the airport affecting over two and a half million passengers per year who would normally book with the Irish airline.

For more than five years Ryanair has been operating at Alicante Airport without the use of airbridges and this decision by AENA Alicante is, say the airline, an abuse of its monopoly which increases Ryanair’s handling costs by over €2m p.a.  Now, Ryanair has submitted a formal complaint about what it claims is a monopoly run by AENA Alicante to both the Spanish Government and the European Commission.

NO SUCKER

Ryanair said in a statement that as a direct result of trying to force RyanAir to use the €2m p.a.

airbridges, AENA Alicante will now lose over €18m p.a. in passenger and turnaround fees from

Ryanair and at least a further €12m in lost commercial revenues from the 2.5m lost passengers. The

agreement (since 2007) permitting Ryanair passengers to walk on and off when boarding aircraft.

airline urged AENA Alicante to reconsider its decision to break, what RyanAir claim, is a long standing

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revenues and see over 2,000 jobs lost at Alicante Airport (hotel industry and tourism support jobs).

 Ryanair went on to say that new terminal at Alicante has exactly the same boarding gate stairs as the old terminal, which would allow Ryanair’s flights to continue to apply its walk on/walk off boarding facilities. 

If the planned cancellations go ahead it is estimated that it will cost Alicante over €30m p.a. in lost

Ryanair is not only reluctant to use the airbridges because of economic reasons only, stating that it will bring delays in turnarounds (because passengers can only use the front door), which will lead to more handling delays and will, they say, increase Ryanair’s costs at Alicante by over €2m p.a.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said in a statement, “It is time that the AENA monopoly airports in Spain stopped abusing their dominant position to force airlines like Ryanair to use unnecessary (airbridge) facilities which we neither want, nor are willing to pay for.  Alicante Airport has opened up a new terminal building which was not needed, and to pay for it, Alicante expects efficient airlines like Ryanair to now use the same inefficient and high cost airbridges that other high fare flag carrier

airlines prefer to use.

However, Ryanair remains committed to Alicante Airport, and with 1.5m passengers and 31 routes cut it will still be the largest airline at Alicante. 

 AENA Alicante must consider that Ryanair as a low cost carrier has many other low cost airport alternatives across Europe if Alicante doesn’t want to work with them and in the current climate; losing jobs and passengers must be the last thing that AENA want.

The details:

RyanAir at Alicante – from October 2011:

*         A drop down 11 to 2 base aircraft (down 80%).

*        Flights cut from 62 to 31 routes (loss of 31 routes).

*        Cuts of over 600 to less than 200 weekly flights.

*        Less passengers – a drop from over 4 Million to fewer than 1.5 Million passenger’s p.a.

*        Jobs – the loss of over 2,500 local jobs at Alicante (hotel industry and tourism support jobs).

ALICANTE WINTER CANCELLATIONS AND CUTS

31 Routes Cancelled include:

Bournemouth

Birmingham

Bremen

Cork

Bristol

Derry

Brussels Charleroi

Doncaster

Dublin

East Midlands

Edinburgh

Humberside

Kerry

Knock

Glasgow Prestwick

Leeds Bradford

Liverpool

London Gatwick

London Stansted

Madrid

Manchester

By Jake Monroe

The Catholic charity Cáritas Española, which attends to some 400,000 immigrants a year, has complained that police show up at its Soup Kitchens and Aid Centres to check to see if immigrants have legal papers.  Police visits are especially frequent in the centres in Segorbe-Castellón (near Valencia), Las Palmas (Canary Islands), and MondoñedoFerrol (Galicia). 

Cáritas argues that the practice is not justified by any “situation of real danger or punishment of criminal infractions,” and reflects an immigration policy that treats the illegal immigrant “as a presumed criminal,” even at the risk “of generating racist feelings.”

Last week the Interior Ministry denied indiscriminate checks are being made, and that the police have never appeared in Cáritas centres to demand papers from immigrants.  They said that police identifications of foreigners dropped by 20 percent last year, and in 2010 there were 13 percent fewer deportations. 

Meanwhile, the organisation asserts the police’s attitude has caused some immigrants to fear attendance at the centres, according to Ana Abril, director of the social development section. The organization has noticed “an increase” in checks not only at its centres, but also in telephone call centers, parks and bus stations. 

The Cáritas report also examines how the economic crisis has hit immigrants particularly hard, and aggravated prejudices against them. It mentions attempts such as that by the town council of Vic, in Catalonia, to restrict municipal registration of irregular immigrants, adding the organization faces growing difficulties in helping them to do this.

Cáritas says the crisis has fomented “overcrowding” in “just-off-theboat” flats, either rented or owned, where many immigrants live. The rate of mortgage default, however, is slightly higher among Spanish nationals than foreigners: 0.21 percent against 0.20.