EASYJET is to axe the Glasgow to Morocco service after a downturn in passenger numbers due to the recent terror attacks in nearby Tunisia.

Flights to and from the Scottish airport to Marakech will end from June next year – a decision the company said was taken before Friday's Paris shootings and bombings that killed 129 people.

Ali Gayward, the head of the company's business in Scotland, said: “Because of recent terrorist activity in places like Tunisia it is one market where we have seen a bit of a downturn in demand,” she said.

Ms Gayward said the Marrakech service was probably affected by holiday-makers switching to other destinations in the wake of the Tunisia beach terrorist attacks which killed 38 people, including two Scots couples.

Gunman Seifeddine Rezgui went on the rampage killing holidaymakers at random in Sousse in June.

If followed on from the deaths of 22 people, including one Briton, after gunmen attacked tourists visiting a museum in Tunis in March.

Sophie Dekkers, easyJet’s director for the UK market, said the company had no plans to launch any further routes into North Africa until the political situation in the area has settled down.

“The customer demand is not there,” she said.

easyJet will use the capacity freed up be axing the Marrakech service to increase the frequency of flights to popular European resorts such as Alicante.

It intends to launch a service linking Glasgow to Marseilles in southern France next March. This is expected to be more popular with business travellers than the Marrakech route.

easyJet said it had experienced a "cooling off" in demand for travel to France after the Paris attacks on Friday which killed at least 129 people.

Ms Dekkers said the trend in Scotland was on line with other UK airports.

She noted there was an increase in the number of passengers who had booked to go to France but did not show up for their flights over the weekend. easyJet has offered customers who were booked for travel to Paris the chance to defer or change their tickets

However, easyJet’s chief executive Carolyn McCall said the airline expects normal services to resume quickly.

"You will always see a cooling off period but you also see quite a quick resumption to travelling again," Ms McCall told reporters.

Regarding Egypt, where the airline has had to cancel flights to the Sharm al-Sheikh resort after a British government warning over airport security, Ms McCall said that that disruption would have a "very, very small" effect on the company's full-year outcome.