- Ryanair: 200 new routes in 2016
- EasyJet: 106
- Wizz Air: 100
- Frontier Airlines: 84
- Vueling: 76
Ryanair hit top spot as the world’s number one airline for new route launches in 2016. After tying with EasyJet in 2015 (99 new routes) the Irish airline’s 2016 figure – 200 – was almost double that of its low-cost rival.
Over half of the new services in 2016 (55pc) were on airport pairs not served by any other carrier, airline database anna.aero reported. It said that airlines used Airbus aircraft to launch around 200 more new services than were started using Boeing aircraft.
European low-cost carriers dominate the list of new route launches. Of the top 20 airlines in 2016, 13 are based in
Europe, covering Germany (Eurowings, Germania and SunExpress Germany), Romania (Blue Air), Scandinavia (Norwegian) and the UK (Flybe and Jet2.com). Compared with last year’s top 20 airlines, Flybe, Transavia, Eurowings, Blue Air and Jet2.com have replaced Pobeda, Aegean Airlines, Turkish Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Aeroflot. Airports in the US led the way for launches, followed by Spain.
The anna.aero New Route Database said 1,150 new services from 162 airlines are scheduled to start before the end of 2017. Last January the corresponding figures were 1,100 and 170. The full findings can be found here.
