Tourism bosses said people liked to book flights early

People logging onto the airline's website to get flights on the Newquay to Stansted route after 26 March were told flights were not available.

Tourism leaders are concerned it might put people off booking holidays.

Ryanair said the delays were because it had to fit in to Stansted's schedule. It hopes to finalise routes this week.

There might be a few conspiracy theories out there about it at the moment Peter Sherard, Ryanair

Customers logging onto the Ryanair website were told if they wanted to fly on 26 March or afterwards, flights were not available. Another message said flights after 26 March would be on sale from 23 December, two weeks ago.

Ryanair cut its weekday morning flights from Newquay to London last November in protest against a �5 departure tax by the county council to fund the airport's redevelopment.

The lack of flight information started to fuel speculation that the budget airline may have been planning to pull out of Newquay altogether.

Tourism leaders are concerned it could put people off coming to the county.

Malcolm Bell, of South West Tourism, said: "It's frustrating because although people are tending to book their accommodation later and later, they tend to like to book their flights early."

Busy schedule

Ryanair said the delay was because Newquay had to fit into Stansted's busy schedule and this was proving difficult to finalise.

The company's head of communications, Peter Sherard, said it was not deliberately withholding information.

He said: "There might be a few conspiracy theories out there about it at the moment, but really it's a case of getting it loaded into the system.