Wizz Air is abandoning its flights to Poland from September 15, leaving Thomsonfly as the airport's only passenger carrier.

Chief executive Chris Orphanou described Wizz as "extremely important" in 2006 when it announced it was to fly from Coventry - but the company has failed to attract enough passengers.

Wizz Air spokeswoman Natasa Kázmér said: "Most of our customers using this service were Poles.

"As the trends are changing and the demand for city breaks is on the increase while the trends towards working in the UK are in decline, we decided to stop the Coventry-Katowice route and move the capacity to routes that are more in demand."

The news did not surprise Stoneleigh resident Archy Muir, who has campaigned against passenger operations at the airport for years. He said: "The business model at Coventry Airport is bust.

"If it can't keep an insignificant airline like Wizz Air, it's very doubtful that it would be able to attract and keep any serious players."

A fanfare similar to that which met Wizz Air greeted German airline Hapag-Lloyd Express when it started operating from Baginton - but it moved to Birmingham Airport in 2005 after an unproductive year at Coventry.

Wizz Air originally hoped to expand its destinations to Romania and Bulgaria, but only ever offered Poland.

The airport's managers are currently awaiting the result of a High Court hearing held last month. It investigated whether its plans for a 10,000 sq ft terminal, capable of handling two million passengers a year, should be reconsidered after they were refused by the government last year.

Figures for May, the most recent available, show a 31 per cent reduction in passengers at Coventry compared with the same month last year, with about 39,000 people using the airport. This follows falls of 29 per cent in April and 34 per cent in March.

No-one from the Airport was available for comment as the Courier went to press.