Struggling budget airlines cut back

The winter travel plans of thousands of people with homes in France could be hit as Ryanair and Easyjet cut back their services.

Ryanair has announced a 25% reduction in the number of aircraft and a 14% drop in flights at Stansted airport which serves 18 destinations in France, blaming high fuel prices and airport charges for making them uneconomical.

It claims the number of passengers using Stansted will drop by 900,000 as a result.

The company has announced an 85% drop in net profits in the first four months of this year as a result of fuel price rises.

The airline has already cancelled flights to Basel, Budapest, Krakow, Palma, Rzeszow, Salzburg and Valencia saying costs at the airports were 'among the most expensive in Europe' and far outweighed 'potential revenue which passengers are prepared to pay, particularly during the off-peak winter period.'

Ryanair serves 18 airports in France from Stansted - Grenoble, Beziers, Bergerac, Marseille, Carcassonne, Rodez, Toulon, Perpignan, Angouleme, Montpellier, Pau, Biarritz, Limoges, La Rochelle, Poitiers, Tours, Nantes and Dinard.

A spokesman for Ryanair said: “French airports are among the highest-cost airports in Europe. This is primarily as a result of excessive taxes and facilities which are lying idle, or which have been paid for several times over.”

The company would not comment on whether flights to specific airports would be cancelled.

Easyjet is also scaling back services from Stansted, which serves Lyon and Nice, by 12%.

However passenger numbers on French routes from Gatwick have continued to rise.

In July the auditing body Cour des Comptes reported that 154 regional airports were in financial difficulty, operating with bail-outs from local authorities. It also said they were at the mercy of deals done with low-cost airlines which did not weigh in their favour.

Photo:AndyM UK