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Ryanair to operate just two winter routes from Belfast International Airport

Passengers departing Belfast International Airport. Picture by Hugh Russell.
Passengers departing Belfast International Airport. Picture by Hugh Russell. Passengers departing Belfast International Airport. Picture by Hugh Russell.

RYANAIR is set to cut all but two routes from its winter schedule at Belfast International Airport.

The budget airline announced on Thursday that it will drop one-in-three flights across its entire operation from November due to low demand and coronavirus restrictions across Europe.

It said its bases in Cork, Shannon and Toulouse will also close.

But services at Belfast International Airport also look set to be substantially reduced, with London Stansted and Krakow in Poland the only destinations now available on the carrier’s online booking system.

The low cost carrier is currently operating eight destinations, but six will be phased out over the next week.

The last flight to Milan Bergamo Airport of 2020 will take off at 11.20am today.

Ryanair flights to Malaga will cease from Thursday (October 22), with the last flight to Manchester taking off the following day.

Flights to Malta, Gdansk and Warsaw Modlin will cease from next Saturday (October 24).

In a statement, a spokesperson for the airline said: “Ryanair are currently processing cancellations, and will be able to provide a clear overview of the final Winter 2020 schedules next week.”

The budget airline had operated 13 routes from Aldergrove over the winter of 2018, reducing it to six destinations last winter.

Barcelona Girona, Faro and Alicante were dropped from the Belfast International Airport operation earlier in the year.

Ryanair will continue to operate its two active routes at City of Derry Airport to Edinburgh and Liverpool over the winter.

Meanwhile, Belfast International Airport’s anchor airline, Easyjet, has delayed the return of flights to ten European destinations, seven of them seven of them until the spring.

The airline will maintain its ten UK routes from Aldergrove through the winter.

Flights to Majorca will finish today until the spring, with Dalaman and Faro also being put into winter hibernation from next week.

Easyjet has pencilled in the return of flights to Lanzarote from October 24, with Paris, Amsterdam, Geneva and Krakow planned to resume in mid-December.

Holiday airline Jet2 is planning to operate flights to five Spanish and Turkish destinations from Belfast International during November, with a service to Salzburg planned for December 19.

The latest data from the Civil Aviation Authority showed 215,215 passengers passed through the airport during August, around one-third (34 per cent) of the 639,333 recorded during August last year.

READ MORE: Belfast International Airport moves ahead with security expansion as passenger levels slowly recover in August