Ryanair to close 9 Manchester routes

Ryanair will switch the flights to Leeds Bradford, East Midlands or Liverpool. The airline has stated that the change would result in the loss of up to 600 local jobs, which has been disputed by the airport.

Chief executive of Manchester Airport Group, Geoff Muirhead said "We also have all but one service that Ryanair offers, served by other airlines that operate at Manchester, so the damage will be limited."

The nine routes from Manchester that will close are those to Barcelona (Girona), Bremen, Brussels (Charleroi), Cagliari, Dusseldorf (Weeze), Frankfurt (Hahn), Marseille, Milan (Bergamo) and Shannon. The changes, affecting 44 flights a week, will take effect from 1 October.

Ryanair said it had offered Manchester an additional 28 weekly flights if the airport agreed to reduce its charges, but that it had rejected the offer.

Ryanair has also recently announced basing two aircraft at Leeds Bradford.