Irish flight company Ryanair is cutting the number of flights from Stansted airport by 40%.  This will start this winter from October 2009 to March 2010.

Currently they have 40 aircrafts at Stansted airport and this will be reduced to 24 by winter.

The reason for the cutbacks is because Standsted is one of their most expensive bases.  They tried to persuade BAA to cut hight passenger fees this winter but failed.

The 16 aircrafts to be cut will be moved to other european bases.

CEO of Ryanair Michael O’Leary said “Sadly UK traffic and tourism continues to collapse while Ryanair continues to grow traffic rapidly in those countries which welcome tourists instead of taxing them”.

This just goes to show how damaging the governments £10 tourist tax and BAA high airport charges are damaging the UK tourism and the economy.