The airline has decided to ground some 80 aircraft in its fleet during the winter in an effort to curb costs arising from increasingly expensive fuel.

The Irish budget airline Ryanair plans to cut half of its flights to Finland, completely giving up the route to Turku for the winter season. The airline will also halve flights into Lappeenranta and Tampere in an attempt to improve profitability.

In July about 15,000 passengers travelled to and from Turku using Ryanair.

Communications Director Stephen McNamara said that Turku is a summer route, which the carrier will abandon from the beginning of November.

Customers accustomed to cheap flights into Tampere will find the Ryanair service cut by more than half.

The airline said that flights between Germany and Lappeenranta have also become seasonal, peaking during the summer -- and will trim its service as a result.

“This is difficult to understand because flights on this route have been almost full,” declared Lappeenranta deputy city director Kari Koriakoski.

The flights from central Europe into Finland’s southeastern city are an economic lifeline, as they bring many travelers looking to spend.

Estimates are that last year visitors ploughed some five million euros into south Karelia in income, while the city itself spent around 800,000 euros on marketing programmes.