SHARE
COPY LINK

RYANAIR

Ryanair woes threaten Swedish airports

Irish airline Ryanair's 85 percent year-on-year drop in profits reported on Monday could affect Swedish airports, according to Dagens Industri. Stockholm Skavsta Airport relies on Ryanair for 90% of its traffic.

Ryanair woes threaten Swedish airports

Irish airline Ryanair’s reported on Monday that its pre-tax profits had crashed to 200 million kronor ($33.4 million) in the second quarter, down 85 percent on the corresponding period of last year.

Ryanair’s report is a sobering read for many regional Swedish airports which have surfed the wave of Ryanair’s recent success and expansion.

Skavsta airport, south of Stockholm, relies on Ryanair for 90 percent of its traffic and has seen massive development in recent years with a new hotel and terminal buildings.

“If you put all your eggs in one basket then the exposure to risk is high,” said Anders G Högmark of the association of Swedish regional airports (Svenska Regionala Flygplatsförbundet) to Dagens Industri.

Ryanair is a company used to bumper profits and Anders G Högmark expects the company leadership to enforce a savings program in order to turn the figures around.

Högmark told Dagens Industri that there is little scope for rationalizing costs or introducing any further charges and so he expects Ryanair to make cuts in less profitable routes. Many of these cuts could affect routes from Sweden, Högmark argues.

Stockholm Skavsta MD, Dot Gade, is not overly concerned about Ryanair’s plans, although she is acutely aware of the airport’s reliance on the airline.

“When you have such an important client of course we notice if things are not going so well for them, ” Gade said to Dagens Industri, adding, “if there is one airline that will survive and prosper, it is Ryanair.”

RYANAIR

UPDATE: Ryanair passenger jet makes emergency landing in Berlin over ‘fake bomb threat’

Polish police said Monday they were investigating a fake bomb threat that forced a Ryanair passenger plane travelling from Dublin to Krakow to make an emergency landing in Berlin.

UPDATE: Ryanair passenger jet makes emergency landing in Berlin over 'fake bomb threat'
A Ryanair flight making an emergency landing

The flight from Dublin to Krakow made the unexpected diversion after a reported bomb threat, German newspaper Bild Zeitung said.

“We were notified by the Krakow airport that an airport employee received a phone call saying an explosive device had been planted on the plane,” said regional police spokesman, Sebastian Glen.

“German police checked and there was no device, no bomb threat at all. So we know this was a false alarm,” he told AFP on Monday.

“The perpetrator has not been detained, but we are doing everything possible to establish their identity,” Glen added, saying the person faces eight years in prison.

With 160 people on board, the flight arrived at the Berlin Brandenburg airport shortly after 8 pm Sunday, remaining on the tarmac into early Monday morning.

A Berlin police spokesperson said that officers had completed their security checks “without any danger being detected”.

“The passengers will resume their journey to Poland on board a spare aeroplane,” she told AFP, without giving more precise details for the alert.

The flight was emptied with the baggage also searched and checked with sniffer dogs, German media reported.

The passengers were not able to continue their journey until early Monday morning shortly before 4:00 am. The federal police had previously classified the situation as harmless. The Brandenburg police are now investigating the case.

Police said that officers had completed their security checks “without any danger being detected”.

“The Ryanair plane that made an emergency landed reported an air emergency and was therefore immediately given a landing permit at BER,” airport spokesman Jan-Peter Haack told Bild.

“The aircraft is currently in a safe position,” a spokeswoman for the police told the newspaper.

The incident comes a week after a Ryanair flight was forced to divert to Belarus, with a passenger — a dissident journalist — arrested on arrival.

And in July last year, another Ryanair plane from Dublin to Krakow was forced to make an emergency landing in London after a false bomb threat.

READ ALSO: Germany summons Belarus envoy over forced Ryanair landing

SHOW COMMENTS