Airport musical chairs

Britain's low-cost carriers are in a spat with airports yet again over fees. Firstly, Ryanair announced that it would cancel 90% of its Manchester flights and, just a few days later, easyJet followed suit by saying it would relocate from Luton to Gatwick and Stansted. Also, Ryanair is threatening to reduce its flights from Dublin and Stansted.

It's all very well to get huffy about airport fees, but changing flying patterns means shifting aircraft as well. And that means extra cost in terms of staffing changes and maybe changes in the overall efficiency of the aircraft and crew assignments. In addition, in Ryanair's case, such a substantial reduction in activity at a single airport is likely to affect their market. It all rather begs the question whether the costs of redeploying big chunks of capacity offset the reductions in fees.

And what about the strange situation where Ryanair is unhappy with Stansted's fees whereas easyJet appear happy to actually move to Stansted?

The old expression, "throwing the baby out with the bath water" springs to mind.