Ryanair to close Glasgow base

Ryanair has announced plans to close its one aircraft Glasgow International base from November.

The budget airline will cut the number of routes out of Glasgow to just three from 23, and switch the one aircraft and routes to Derry, Lisbon, Sofia, Riga and Berlin to Edinburgh Airport. It's estimated that around 300 jobs could be lost at Glasgow Airport as a result.

Three routes will remain at Glasgow, to Dublin, Krakow and Wroclaw, which will be operated by plans and crews based elsewhere.

The company expressed regret over the cuts, pointing to a "weaker" Glasgow market, where efforts to stimulate low fare demand are hampered by the continuing burden of the air passenger duty, which is a £13 tax on all departing passengers aged 16 or over for European flights.

As well as the routes being transferred from Glasgow, the company will also operate new routes from Edinburgh to Gothenburg, Hamburg, Memmingen, Stockholm Skavsta, Seville and Tallinn.

At 1330 GMT, the shares were down 1.7% to €16.04.