- Winter route launches to stay for summer
- No new routes for summer 2017
Ryanair launched its summer 2017 schedule from Belfast International airport, with 11 routes including Berlin, London and Milan, which will deliver 1.1m customers and Ryanair claims will support 800 jobs at Belfast International Airport.
Ryanair’s 11 Belfast routes are to Alicante, Bergamo, Berlin-Schönefeld, Gdańsk (begins November 2), Kraków (begins October 30), Lanzarote (begins October 31), London-Gatwick, Málaga, Tenerife-South (begins October 31), Warsaw-Modlin (begins November 2) and Wrocław (begins October 31).
This compares with 27 routes served by Easyjet next summer to Alicante, Amsterdam, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Faro, Glasgow-International, Kraków, Lanzarote, Liverpool, London-Gatwick, London-Luton, London-Stansted, Málaga, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Reykjavík-Keflavík and seasonal routes to Barcelona, Bordeaux, Geneva, Ibiza, Jersey, Lyon, Nice, Palma de Mallorca and Split.
Ryanair offer what it calls more frequencies to sun destinations for family holidays, lower fares (as Ryanair passes on lower fuel costs), an even better customer experience as it rolls out year 3 of its “Always Getting Better” customer experience programme, and, the airline says, will deliver:
- 3 based aircraft
- 10 new routes including Lanzarote (2w), Malaga (5w), Tenerife (2w) & Warsaw Modlin (2w)
- 11 routes in total including London Gatwick (4 daily)
- 1.1m customers
Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said: “our 10 new summer routes and our 4 times daily service to London Gatwick, which will deliver 10pc growth to 1.1m customers p.a. and support over 800 jobs at Belfast Airport. Customers can look forward to even lower fares when they make advance bookings for summer 2017. As our recent guidance confirmed, Ryanair expects average fares to fall by between 10pc to 12pc in the 6 months to March 2017. There’s never been a better time to book a low fare flight on Ryanair and we urge all customers who wish to book their summer 2017 holidays to do so now on the Ryanair.com website, where they can avail of the lowest fare air travel to and from Belfast. To celebrate the launch of our Belfast summer 2017 schedule we are releasing seats for sale from just £19.99, which are available for booking until Friday Sept 28 on ryanair.com
Belfast International Airport Managing Director, Graham Keddie said: “Three based aircraft underlines Ryanair’s clear intention to go for growth in the north. It is a hugely significant investment in its new hub and one that is based on clear passenger demand. Ryanair said they would carry onem passengers in the first year of operation and I’m delighted to see that figure revised upwards. The potential is considerable, but it would be much more if we dealt with the regressive Air Passenger Duty (APD) tax that serves to slow down airline expansion and growth.I make the appeal to Ministers in the Stormont Executive to realise the damage that APD is causing and move to reduce or remove it so that we can go on to create thousands of new jobs and open up new business opportunities.”
