Ryanair has announced that it is cutting the number of flights in and out of Dublin airport from next January. In total 48 flights will be scrapped.
The Dublin-Cork route will be reduced from two return flights a day to one. Services on the East Midlands, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds Bradford, and Manchester routes are also being cut.
The airline said this would result in a reduction of 380,000 passengers. It said higher airport charges were to blame for the cuts.
Chief executive Michael O'Leary called on the Government to mothball or sell Dublin Airport's Terminal 2, and also repeated the airline's call for the €10 travel tax to be scrapped.
The Ryanair chief also said an IMF solution is the only way out for Ireland. He said the sooner it happened, the better, so that 'sacred cows like partnership' will be scrapped.
The DAA said Dublin Airport's charges were 'highly competitive' compared with similar European airports.
'It is impossible to tell how Ryanair has calculated the cuts that it claims it plans to make on individual routes from this January, but based on slot filings and Ryanair's own timetable, the airline had indicated that it is planning to increase services on many of those routes this winter, the DAA added.
