An item of good news for Ryanair this week following recent announcements of job cuts and a reduction of 64% in passenger numbers as the low cost airline details of a new route between Alicante-Elche airport and Tenerife.
The opening of the new route will coincide with the start of the winter season, connecting Alicante with Tenerife through a link with the Tenerife North Airport – City of La Laguna. The route will have three weekly flights that will operate on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
Earlier in the week Chief executive Michael O’Leary had announced that it would only maintain up to 65 per cent of its route network between November and March.
It will close its Irish bases in Cork and Shannon, as well as Toulouse in France, during the five-month period. With routes that survive being served with a lower frequency of flights than normal.
O’Leary also added: “Our focus continues to be on maintaining as large a schedule as we can sensibly operate to keep our aircraft, our pilots and our cabin crew current and employed while minimising job losses.
“It is inevitable, given the scale of these cutbacks, that we will be implementing more unpaid leave, and job-sharing this winter in those bases where we have agreed reduced working time and pay, but this is a better short-term outcome than mass job losses.
“There will regrettably be more redundancies at those small number of cabin crew bases where we have still not secured agreement on working time and pay cuts, which is the only alternative.
