The recession made a further impact on the airline industry today as Virgin Atlantic announced a possible 600 redundancies and Ryanair cut 200 at its Dublin airport base, adding to plans to reduce staff at its Shannon hub by 100.

Virgin Atlantic said that it was consulting with 600 staff and their unions.

In a statement, it said: "Virgin Atlantic is continuing to reshape its business to ensure it remains strong during the downturn."

Ryanair, the Irish low-cost carrier, said that its cuts were "not recessionary", and were instead a response to airport and passenger taxation imposed by the Irish Government.

Steve Ridgway, the chief executive of Virgin Atlantic, said: "No airline is immune from the recession and we continue to reshape our business to ensure we're in the best position for the longer term.

"With falling demand for travel, airlines have to reduce their costs through a variety of measures, including cutting capacity, freezing pay, unpaid leave and, regrettably, adjusting staff numbers."

The airline will begin a statutory 90-day consultation period with its employees and the Unite and Balpa unions.

A spokesman for Ryanair said the slump was not affecting the budget airline's passenger traffic and instead blamed the introduction of a €10 tourist tax by the Irish Government for his company having to cut 200 jobs among its pilots, cabin crews and engineers at Dublin airport.

Ryanair has also announced reductions at its Dublin airport base, including a cut in aircraft numbers and flights for its summer season, and further reductions to be announced for the winter schedule this year.

There will be a reduction in its aircraft at the airport by 20 per cent, from 22 to 18, and its traffic through Dublin will be reduced by 20 per cent for 2009-10, from 10.8 million passengers to 8.7 million.

Ryanair's summer flight cutbacks will affect routes out of Dublin to the UK and the Continent, including a 32 per cent fall in flights to Leeds Bradford, a 23 per cent drop in the schedule to Manchester and a 33 per cent reduction in journeys to Barcelona.

The announcement at Dublin is the second hit to Irish jobs today, after SR Technics, the aircraft maintenance company, revealed that 1,135 workers had been cut as management lost several key contracts with airlines in the past year.

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