The airline blamed Manchester Airport’s refusal to reduce its charges to reflect the lower fares being paid by passengers in the current recessio It said it would now focus on competitor airports in East Midlands, Leeds Bradford and Liverpool.

The move, from October 1, will result in the loss of 44 weekly Manchester flights, carrying 600,000 passengers a year. Manchester routes affected include to/from Barcelona (Girona), Bremen, Brussels (Charleroi), Cagliari, Dusseldorf (Weeze), Frankfurt (Hahn), Marseille, Milan (Bergamo) and Shannon.

The airline said it had offered new routes, traffic and growth to Manchester Airport if it lowered its costs.

An Italian supplier stopped production on two sections of its long-delayed 787 Dreamliner in June after structural flaws were found on fuselages.

Alenia Aeronautica halted production because of wrinkles in the fuselage skin caused by flaws in subcomponents of the one-piece composite barrel, according to Boeing.

Flaws were found on 23 Dreamliner aircraft, starting with the seventh in production. However, Boeing has stressed that a solution had been designed and patches will be applied to all the aircraft built so far.

The company stressed that the latest delay would not affect the timetable for its first 787 test flight or deliveries of the aircraft, but Boeing shares fell more than four per cent on the New York Stock Exchange.

The revolutionary carbon-composite 787 has been delayed repeatedly. On June 23, the same day as the Alenia Aeronautica production halt, Boeing announced another delay to the first test flight of the 787. The company has not set a new target date for the flight.

A new report from the Office of National Statistics says the number of British people travelling abroad slumped by 10 per cent in June compared to the same month last year.

The reduction, from 70.9 million to 63.5 million, included a 15 per cent fall to North America, down to four million.

Travel to Europe fell 10 per cent to 50.4 million.

There was also a nine per cent decrease to the rest of the world, down to 9.1 million.

The figures, from the Office for National Statistics, show that spending during the months of April to June fell by eight per cent to £7.6 billion.

The number of visitors to the UK was also down in the 12 months to June, with figures showing an eight per cent drop, from 33.1 million to 30.5 million.

The Spanair MD82’s flaps and slats were not extended as the aircraft was preparing for takeoff, but this was not noticed during the pilots’ routine pre-departure check and the automatic on-board system did not alert the error, Spain’s Civil Aviation Accidents Commission said in its report.

“The aircraft had the standard procedures and check lists in force… which included the selection and confirmation of the correct configuration for takeoff,” the report said.

“The pilots used these procedures as a reference, but for some reason, whether an interruption from the aircraft’s first return to the terminal due to a mechanical problem, pressure due to time delays or faults in the cabin crew’s work methods, these were not strictly followed,” it added.

The Canary Island-bound flight overran the runway into a ravine on takeoff and burst into flames on August 20 last year. It was Spain’s worst air crash in 25 years.

The Commission also recommended an annual international aviation conference to revise checklists, crew training and improvements in work methods to ensure that crews correctly configure their aircraft before takeoff and landing.