Ryanair is to cut its passenger numbers out of Dublin airport by about half a million this winter, Michael O'Leary, the airline's chief executive, announced today. He blamed costs at Dublin airport and the surging price of oil for the cutbacks, which will see 18 Ryanair planes operating from the facility compared with 22 last year and weekly routes cut by an average of 12% on last year.

Flights to London Stansted will be cut by 14% and there will be 31% fewer flights to Leeds Bradford. The seven weekly winter flights to Warsaw are being scrapped altogether.

“We regret this significant capacity reduction at Dublin airport this winter,” O'Leary said. “It will be the first time for many years that Ryanair has reduced capacity at Dublin airport.”

The Ryanair boss claimed rising costs at Dublin airport had made it more profitable for Ryanair to ground more than 150 flights this winter. But the airport authority had spurned his plea for costs to be cut. O'Leary said the airport was already his airline's second most expensive base and was getting dearer with increased check-in fees.

O’Leary has long been critical of the airport authority’s planned €400 million second terminal, which he claims is funded by price increases that hit airlines and passengers. He has called for a low-cost competing terminal to be built instead.

Dublin Airport Authority hit back in uncharacteristic fashion, claiming O'Leary's cutbacks were more to do with Ryanair’s own internal business than with airport costs. It confirmed that Ryanair had recently asked for support for some of its winter services “on a seemingly exclusive and non-commercial basis”.

“The DAA finds it ironic that Ryanair, the so-called champion of competition, complains publicly when its request for anti-competitive support mechanisms are justly declined,” the authority said.

It insisted its maximum airport charge is among the lowest of all big European airports and, as Europe’s eighth busiest international airport, was “not comparable to the remote former airfields to which Ryanair largely flies”.

“The combination of a sharp economic slowdown in many of its key markets, its own failure to provide hedge against historically high oil prices and its heavily loss-making investment in Aer Lingus are the key factors driving this decision to consolidate seasonal schedules and not airport charges, which are paid fully by the airline’s passengers.”

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