Ryanair gives Birmingham airport a boost

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The chief executive of Birmingham International Airport (BIA), Paul Kehoe, is saying: “It was Ryanair coming in during July that boosted the traffic.”

In the past, Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive, had a stormy history with the airport, and regularly attacked BIA’s landing fees in the media.

It seems that the hatchet has been buried however, since Ryanair made BIA its 25th operating base last year. This move helped BIA, the second largest airport in the UK outside of London, to increase its passenger traffic to 9.6 million.

The airport was performing under its capabilities largely due to its now-abandoned stance of being slightly unwelcoming to both budget and charter airlines. “We were overly loyal to British Airways,” the airport’s chief executive said. “We protected them, but when they had the first opportunity to move [their flights] to Heathrow, they did.”

Many Midlandlers would fly from either Manchester or an airport in the south-east. Kehoe’s challenge is to convince them to make the switch to BIA, which is owned by a local council and foreign investment fund consortium.

Thanks to www.ft.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.

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