Ryanair to launch new routes from Leeds Bradford
Thursday, August 13, 2009 @ 1:37 PM
The airline will offer a total of 63 weekly return flights from March next year to destinations including popular summer holiday destinations such as Ibiza, Malaga and Malta.
It will also introduce flights to Palma, Limoges, Montpellier, Nantes, Carcassonne, Pisa, Venice (Treviso), Krakow, Faro, Knock and Murcia. Tickets are available from today.
The announcement follows the decision last month to add five new routes from Prestwick Airport in Glasgow.
Ryanair says the move to Leeds Bradford – its 34th European base – will create 1,000 sustainable jobs and will increase the airline’s annual passenger traffic to over one million passengers.
John Parkin, chief executive at Leeds Bradford, said: “This is a great vote of confidence in the potential of both the airport and our region from Europe's largest airline.”
Ryanair currently operates three routes from the northern airport, to Alicante, Barcelona (Girona) and Dublin.
Last month, Telegraph Travel reported that up to 140 routes from Britain to mainland Europe have disappeared during the last year, as airlines seek to make savings in the face of falling passenger numbers and rising costs.
The frequency of a number of other routes has also been cut.
Last month, Ryanair scrapped dozens of routes out of Stansted and Dublin, blaming the air taxes imposed by the British and Irish governments.
However, the recent poor weather across Britain, coupled with the Met Office’s revising its prediction of a barbeque summer, has boosted the number of Britons taking flights to Europe.
Source: The Telegraph