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Ryanair is to switch or close nine of the 10 routes it currently operates from Manchester Airport, blaming the airport’s refusal to lower its charges.

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 airline said passengers affected by the changes would be e-mailed and, “provided with a full refund, or the alternative of flying to some destinations” from East Midlands, Leeds Bradford and Liverpool.

source: BBC News

The second largest airline operator at Heathrow has announced it is cutting dozens of services from its weekly schedule of flights.

BMI British Midland is scrapping part of its domestic network and slashing capacity to Europe in an attempt to stem losses.

The airline is expected to announce today that it is axing two of its services between Heathrow and Leeds and Bradford and Durham Tees Valley.

A total of seven daily departures will be cut, on top of the previously announced closure of the twice-daily service between Heathrow and Jersey.

source: thisislondon.co.uk

British Airways has “indefinitely” cancelled all flights to the Pakistani capital Islamabad amid security concerns after the bombing of the Marriott hotel, the airline said Tuesday.BA issued a statement confirming the cancellation of its six weekly services to Islamabad, the only destination it flies to in Pakistan, a day after saying that it was only temporarily suspending flights.

“In light of the security situation in Pakistan, British Airways has cancelled its flights from Islamabad to Heathrow indefinitely,” a British Airways statement said.

source: AFP

Continental Airlines Inc. said Tuesday it will discontinue its flights to London/Gatwick Airport from the New York area and Houston, and will add a third daily flight from its New York Hub at Newark Liberty International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport on Oct. 25.

The launch of the Heathrow flight is subject to government and airport approval.

The move is an effort to satisfy customers’ preference for Heathrow over Gatwick and to face growing competition at the airport, the carrier said.

source: BusinessWeek

America’s airline shrinkage has landed at Stewart International Airport again. JetBlue Airways is downsizing its flights to just two a day after Sept. 2, the carrier says.

The last flight to West Palm Beach, Fla., will be Sept. 2.

That same day, JetBlue will drop one of its two daily flights to Orlando and one of the two to Fort Lauderdale. But according to travelers and the airline’s Web site, there’s only one Fort Lauderdale flight now.

source: poughkeepsiejournal.com

Continental Airlines said it is cutting 3,000 jobs and reducing capacity by 11 percent, citing record fuel costs that have pushed the industry into its worst crisis since 2001.

Continental will begin pulling back on flights in September, when departures on its mainline operations will drop about 16 percent below September 2007 levels. Fourth-quarter capacity will fall 11 percent. The company said it plans to offer details on flight and destination reductions and eliminations by the end of next week.

source: washingtonpost.com

American Airlines is to axe its daily flights from Stansted to New York amid growing concern about the cost of fuel.

The carrier said the last flight would depart from Stansted on July 2, less than a year after it started the service.

American said it would continue its flights between New York’s JFK airport and Heathrow, but added it was looking to reduce its costs in face of “skyrocketing fuel prices and a softening economy“.

source: edp24.co.uk

Centralwings, the low-cost arm of the Polish national airline carrier LOT, which noted significant losses last year is now cancelling dozens of unprofitable flights, Gazeta Wyborcza writes.

Since April 1 Centralwings will serve only one route from the mid-western Polish city of Poznań to Rome. The connections to Paris and Edinburgh will be put on hold. New flights to Amsterdam and Manchester which were supposed to take off in April were cancelled.

source: Polish Market

Spanish low-cost airline Clickair has scrapped plans to introduce a regular Sofia-Barcelona flight as part of its cost-cutting push, daily El Pais reported on February 4.

Clickair, partially owned by Spanish national flag carrier Iberia, has dropped a total of eight routes to trim down its flight schedule, choosing to concentrate on its more profitable flights.

source: Sofia Echo

Alitalia SpA, the state-controlled airline Italy is trying to sell, is cutting flights at Milan’s Malpensa airport because it’s “economically impossible” to maintain two hubs.Alitalia will eliminate unprofitable routes, keeping just three of its current 17 intercontinental flights at Malpensa while increasing traffic at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, the carrier said in a slide presentation on its Web site today. Mounting losses make it impossible to keep two hubs, the company said in the presentation of its summer 2008 schedule.

source: Bloomberg