Ryanair Boeing 737-8AS WL EI-DCJ (msn 33564) STN (Keith Burton), originally uploaded by Airliners Gallery.
Ryanair (Dublin) is well known for opposing governmental taxes and rate increases.
On December 14 the company announced the following cuts in Germany for the summer 2011 season due to the tourist tax:
“Ryanair announced further cuts to its 2011 German operations which will suffer the loss of 3 million passengers and 3,000 jobs at airports in Berlin, Bremen, Dusseldorf (Weeze) and Frankfurt (Hahn) due to the German Government’s new €8 tourist tax.
Ryanair will cut the following flights and traffic from its summer 2011 schedule in response to the German Government’s €8 tourist tax:
Berlin – 122 weekly flights, 4 routes and 900,000 passengers p.a. with the loss of 900 jobs.
Bremen – 58 weekly flights, 8 routes, 400,000 passengers p.a. with the loss of 400 jobs.
Düsseldorf (Weeze) – 84 weekly flights, 13 routes, 700,000 passengers p.a. with the loss of 700 jobs in Weeze
Frankfurt (Hahn) – 150 weekly flights, 9 routes, 1m passengers p.a. with the loss of 1,000 jobs in Hahn.
Ryanair regrets that the German Government’s €8 tourist tax now makes Germany an uncompetitive tourist destination at a time when many other EU Governments (including Holland, Belgium, Greece and Spain) have scrapped tourist taxes altogether and/or reduced airport charges, in some cases to zero, in order to grow traffic and tourism. Even the Irish Government last week recognized the damage done to Irish tourism and jobs and has slashed its failed €10 tourist tax to just €3.”
Who will blink first?
Copyright Photo: Keith Burton. Please click on the photo for additional aircraft details.