For a long time Ryanair has served the greater Frankfurt market via its operations from Hahn Airport, a secondary facility around about 120 km (75 mi) from the city. However, as part of its business maturity and to boost premium traffic the carrier is now serving more major airports and its arrival into Frankfurt is a major part of this network project.
This latest growth from Ryanair for winter 2017/2018 and further connectivity gains will boost international capacity from Israel beyond ten million seats for the first time. This is a significant landmark as the five million figure was only surpassed less than ten years ago in 2008.
Not content with a 40+ per cent growth in passenger traffic in 2016, one week into the New Year Cornwall Airport Newquay has already confirmed the launch of a new summer link to the Republic of Ireland from Stobart Air and the return of Flybe services to London Stansted as part of an expanded summer 2017 programme that will also see increased frequencies on five existing domestic routes.
The budget airline has already established itself as the largest carrier in Italy and held a 22.8 per cent share of available capacity this past summer season, according to OAG schedule data. The airline’s arrival into the Naples market means that from the forthcoming summer season it will have a presence at all but one of the 14 largest Italian airports by capacity; its only exception being Linate Airport, the secondary international airport of Milan.
The European Commission has found that public funding granted by Austria to Klagenfurt airport is in line with European Union (EU) state aid rules, but as ruled that certain airport services and marketing agreements concluded between the airport operator and airlines Ryanair, Hapag-Lloyd Express and TUIfly gave the latter “an undue advantage”, which cannot be justified under state aid rules.
Air Berlin’s loss is the Irish carrier’s gain as their expansion in Germany reaches the business hub of Frankfurt. This follows Ryanair opening a base at Hamburg, stationing two aircraft at the airport.
Located between Germany's two hub airports of Frankfurt and Munich means Airport Nurnberg may be the small fish in the pond, but it hopes Its Blue Ocean campaign will help deliver new capital city connectivity in the future.
Newcastle Airport officials are celebrating their growing relationship with Irish low-fare carrier Ryanair with the addition of a new link to the Spanish capital, Madrid in summer 2017. The airline had already revealed an expanded 2017 programme earlier this summer when it added flights to Faro, Girona and Palma to its Newcastle network.
Ryanair's introduction of flights from Oslo Airport to London Stansted and Vilnius follows the confirmation this week of the closure of the airline’s base at Rygge after the Norwegian Government introduced of an 80NOK tax on all departing passengers. Ryanair said the “environmentally unfriendly tax” will damage Norwegian tourism, traffic and jobs and left it with “no choice” but to modify its Oslo operations.
The expanded offering will boost its available capacity by 19 percent to 450,000 annual seats and will include a new twice weekly link to the recent Routes Europe host city, Kraków, in Poland. It will also extend summer routes to Faro, Gran Canaria and Malta into the winter schedule, adding to its current flights to Alicante, Malaga and Tenerife.
Maximising Dublin’s connectivity potential is the focus for Ireland’s two largest carriers. Speaking at the Phocuswright Europe conference in the Irish capital this week, Ryanair’s chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, has hinted that flight connections with Aer Lingus could be a reality within the next 12 months.
It seems there’s more than enough room in Budapest for Europe's rival low-cost carriers Ryanair and Wizz Air. Wizz Air CEO József Váradi and Ryanair CMO Kenny Jacobs share their plans to Routes News magazine.
Valencia, the third largest city in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona, believes it is an ideal year-round destination for the world’s airlines and regularly takes a presence at leading aviation and tourism events such as Routes Europe to highlight what it has to offer. And it appears that a story of over 300 days of sunshine a year is being understood by the world’s airlines.
The airport is developing a much closer relationship with the budget carrier and this has brought what was just a single route operation to and from Dublin just over a year or so ago, to an eight destination network, including flights revealed this week to Gdansk, Warsaw Modlin and Wroclaw.
Ryanair first introduced flights into Prague in November 2007 and currently offers at least daily flights from Brussels Charleroi, Dublin and London Stansted. The launch of the base will support the introduction of new daily flights to Bergamo and Rome in Italy and will boost annual capacity by around 100,000 to 625,000 seats.
As the Eastern European market continues to grow, much of the growth can be attributed to two of the biggest low-cost carriers (LCCs) in the region. Ryanair and Wizz Air dominate much of the market, but despite growing service, only overlap on a handful of routes. Both carriers have announced plenty of new services in the last 12 months, many of which serve Poland – the largest of the Eastern European air transport market with a third of all seats.
Airlines and airports are always happy to get involved on April Fool’s Day, and this year it has been no different. Now the clock has struck twelve, and the pranks are no longer, we’ve drilled down the top April Fool’s jokes in the aviation industry this year.
Ryanair will station three Boeing 737-800s in Sofia from the end of October 2016 to support a network of 90 flights across 21 routes and which are forecasted to deliver around 1.5 million passengers per annum. This will position the carrier among the leading operators at Sofia Airport accounting for around a quarter of future traffic.
The budget carrier has served the Lithuanian market for over ten years, initially with a London Stansted – Kaunus operation. It first introduced flights into Vilnius in May 2011 when it debuted services from Bergamo, Bremen, Dublin, Girona, London Stansted and Rome Ciampino. Its expanded offering will mean it will be providing over 3,000 seats per day into the Lithuanian market from the coming winter schedule.
The budget carrier is closing its bases at Alghero’s Riviera del Corallo Airport in Sardinia and Pescara’s Abruzzo Airport from the start of the winter schedule in late October 2016, while it has also emerged that it will end all flights to Sant'Anna Airport serving Crotone in Calabria, where it is the sole scheduled operator.
Ryanair will launch flights from the city from November 1, 2016 with a twice daily link to the Spanish capital, Madrid, a daily service to Brussels Charleroi and London Stansted, a four times weekly link to Berlin and twice weekly flights to Fez, Malta and Warsaw Modlin.
The low-cost carrier will initially position a single Boeing 737-800 at Belfast International Airport to support the London Gatwick operation, a route that it will directly compete with easyJet. A further two aircraft will be stationed at the airport later in 2016 to introduce five more routes for the winter season from October 2016.
