No-frills carrier Ryanair announced on Tuesday that it would be slashing flights from its winter schedule from its main UK base, Stansted airport, blaming rising airport charges, the British government’s “insane” aviation taxes and a significant decline in UK tourism.

At the present time, the Dublin-based airline operates 40 planes from Stansted, but has said that it will reduce that number to 24 by October, cutting capacity by 40 per cent.

What this will mean is a decrease of 30 per cent in the number of weekly flights and 2.5 million fewer passengers for the period from October 2009 through March 2010, according to a statement issued by Ryanair.

In June, Ryanair reported a €169 million loss for its last financial year, as compared with profits of €390 million for the previous year. It cited higher fuel costs and the writedown of its investment in Aer Lingus as the major reasons for the loss.

Michael O’Leary, the airline’s chief executive, said the move to make such a dramatic cut in service was due to the refusal of the Stansted airport operator to reduce passenger fees despite the decline in traffic – which dropped off by six per cent in June alone.

He was also critical of the government’s plan to increase the amount of Air Passenger Duty later this year, by £1 to £11 on short-haul flights, saying that the tax is “insane and damaging”.

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