British Airways, subsidiary CitiExpress, is to withdraw five Irish routes as part of its regional review, it was announced today.
The airline said it plans to discontinue 12 loss-making routes across all its operations, including its Cardiff-Dublin service, three Cork services to Newcastle, Plymouth and Bristol, and the Belfast-Sheffield route.
It said that it would increase its frequency on nine key services including Dublin-Southampton.
BA is to cut 500 jobs at its CitiExpress operation. The cuts form part of BA's Future Size and Shape review.
The company plans to reduce overall regional capacity by 8 per cent. It anticipates cost savings of £20 million sterling each year by 2004. BA says CitiExpress will launch two new routes and increase frequency on nine key business routes.
The job losses are in addition to the 5,800 cuts BA announced in February and the 7,200 announced last year.