Ryanair sets target of million travellers at airport

Mr O’Leary said the budget carrier will add 100,000 customers to its 2010 figures at the West Yorkshire airport and said it was winning customers from Manchester airport.

It came as Ryanair, Europe’s biggest low-cost airline, launched its Leeds Bradford winter schedule with 11 routes, including more flights to Lanzarote.

Mr O’Leary said Leeds Bradford was becoming more of a viable alternative to Manchester, particularly for package holidays, and claimed passengers numbers at the North West airport are in “terminal decline”.

“One of the great success stories within Ryanair’s model in the last 12 months has been Leeds Bradford airport, where (chief executive) John Parkin has assembled a terrific management team that has bucked the trend of UK airports over the last year or two of traffic decline.

“(They are) getting local people back here to use the local airport and away from heading down the motorway to Manchester and increasingly now attracting inward visitors to Yorkshire to use our services for low fare access.”

Mr O’Leary said Ryanair sustained 1,000 jobs at Leeds Bradford either through direct employment with the airline or in areas such as check-in and baggage handling.

He also downplayed complaints from some Yorkshire business people that road traffic to Leeds Bradford is heavy, saying they often travel outside peak times, and that Ryanair is in discussions with the airport’s executives about increasing passenger numbers.

“They have given us a selection of routes they would like to see us on and they would like us to look at so we are looking at those at the moment with a view to adding some additional routes for summer 2012.”

In a colourful address to Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber’s lunch at Leeds United Football Club – rearranged after an appearance arranged for last year was cancelled because of heavy snow – Mr O’Leary said Ryanair was helping Leeds Bradford grow its number of inbound passengers, for holidaymakers coming to the Yorkshire Dales, warned that air passenger duty was damaging Britain’s aviation industry and attacked the previous government for its handling of the economy.

“If you look at the Labour government here over the last couple of terms the amount of money it wasted was phenomenal. You have to get that kind of spending down and you have got to get more people back to work and a lot less people sitting on their backsides collecting public welfare payments.”

The business expertise displayed outside London is helping the UK to tackle its economic woes, he added.

“There is a huge fiscal problem and the Government does have to tackle the fiscal deficit but I think fundamentally the UK has a very strong economy – you still have the benefit of an independent currency which, for example, Ireland doesn’t have. We are tied to the success or failure of the euro.

“Increasingly, you are seeing a lot more enterprise, more growth and more innovation coming from regional centres.”

When Manchester airport was asked about Mr O’Leary’s comments, a spokesman said it was confident of a strong summer. “Like every other regional airport in the UK and Europe, we’ve faced a challenging period during the global recession. However, since October 2010, passenger volumes at Manchester Airport have grown month-on-month, thanks to the strong performance of services to the Middle East and in the low-cost sector, including Ryanair, who we welcomed back to Manchester last month with the launch of five new routes.”

n Jet2.com will offer flights to Gran Canaria from next year, it said yesterday. The airline, based at Leeds Bradford, will fly to Las Palmas from March 28 to November 5 and said it will also offer Christmas shopping trips to New York this year. It has also re-launched its flight booking process and will show prices including all taxes and charges from the outset.

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