Ryanair mantains there still may be fewer flights from Rygge, although the company has made tickets available from the airport in Østfold County for the upcoming winter .
The extent of the “winter program” from Rygge will be settled when the Norwegian government decides whether it will introduce this fake environmental tax or not, Ryanair’s sales and marketing manager for Scandinavia and the Baltics, Hans Jørgen Elnæs, says in an email to news agency NTB.
Until now, the Irish company have maintained that it will close its base at Moss Airport Rygge from November 1, unless the air passenger tax is shelved.
But this weekend Sarpsborg Arbeiderblad announced that Ryanair has launched new tickets for sale for the coming winter from Rygge, among other Canary Islands, Krakow and Bergamo.
Elnæs maintains that the air passenger fee might lead to reduced traffic.
He says the tax will “wipe out the hard-won competitive prices by smaller private airports that compete against state-owned Avinor, which will put Norwegian jobs at risk.”
Prime Minister Erna Solberg (H) said to NTB as recently as last Thursday that she is sure that air passenger tax will be introduced, even though it now has been postponed for two months, until 1 June. The delay came after the ESA requested clarification on whether a proposed exemptions related to the transfer may be a violation of the ban on state aid.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today