SPECULATION is building over Ryanair’s commitment to Bournemouth Airport following a memo from the airline calling all Bournemouth-based staff to a meeting tomorrow.

All pilots and cabin crew staff working for the low-cost airline at Bournemouth Airport have been told to attend the meeting in the crew room tomorrow afternoon along with members of Ryanair’s agency crew.

According to the memo, which was sent to staff yesterday, the meeting is regarding an “important announcement” on the Bournemouth base.

The memo informs staff that Ryanair’s director of flight and ground operations, David O’Brien will be attending along with Peter Bellew, general manager of flight operations and personnel manager Darrell Hughes.

In recent weeks passengers have struggled to book winter flights with the airline for dates after the end of October, as Ryanair’s winter timetables from Bournemouth have not been uploaded to their website.

Despite the schedules for most other UK destinations available a spokesperson for the airline insisted they were still finalising the routes.

But with the news cabin crew and pilots will face the airline’s top bosses on Thursday, one staff member, who wanted to remain anonymous said: “The visit of a person from Ryanair head office is usually not very good news.”

But Stephen McNamara, head of communications at Ryanair said: “While we do not comment on rumour or speculation it is not unusual for us to call these meetings at our bases.

“We discuss what is going on in the market and aviation environment.

“Where our timetables are concerned we are still finalising many of our timetables and are only just beginning to confirm routes.

“As we do not engage with unions we have our people travel to our bases regularly and there would be nothing unusual in this.”

No one was available to comment from Bournemouth Airport, which has recently undergone a £45million investment programme.

An airport insider added: “For a big name such as Ryanair to possibly withdraw some or all of their services from the airport after they have just gone through a multi-million transformation, could have widespread consequences.

“It is quite unprecedented. Although we do not know what they will be announcing, meetings such as these are not usually called to announce new routes.”

Work on the new arrivals terminal at the Manchester Airport Group owned-airport is due to start any day, the second phase of the biggest investment programme Dorset has ever seen.

It is understood the airline, which has two Boeing 737-800 aircraft based at the airport, could employ up to 50 people at Bournemouth Airport.

Last week Ryanair announced they would be slashing their winter capacity at all UK airports except Leeds Bradford and Edinburgh by 16 per cent.