Ryanair to open 18 new Europe routes

Ryanair is to open 18 new routes from Dublin to European destinations including France, Italy, Germany, Poland and Spain from April, declaring it has finally made peace with the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA).

The airline has also increased the number of flights on a range of its existing routes from Dublin and claims that next year it will offer more routes from Ireland than Aer Lingus.

Ryanair will fly to Marseille, Nantes and La Rochelle in France, Baden (Stuttgart) and Hamburg in Germany, and Krakow, Poznan and Wroclaw in Poland. It will offer flights to Milan and Venice in Italy, Gothenburg and Malmö in Sweden, Valencia in Spain, Porto in Portugal and Salzburg in Austria. Further flights will be available to Bratislava in Slovakia, Kaunas in Lithuania and Humberside in the UK.

It is also increasing the number of flights to Frankfurt (Hahn) to two daily, a daily flight to Girona and Faro and will have eight flights weekly to Malaga. The airline will increase the number of flights to Carcassonne in France to five per week, four a week to Biarritz and three a week to Lodz.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said its range of new flights will bring an additional 1.5 million passengers to Dublin airport. Passengers can book on the new routes through Ryanair.com.

"Ryanair is now twice the size and just half the price of Aer Lingus here in Ireland and has long since displaced any claims Aer Lingus might have had to being Ireland's national airline."

Mr O'Leary had refused to expand its Irish-based flights until there were competing terminals at Dublin airport and has vigorously opposed the awarding of the construction of the new terminal to the DAA. Yesterday Mr O'Leary, who was dressed as Santa Claus, said Ryanair was "eating humble pie" and presented a cake to the authority's spokesman, Vincent Wall, in admission of its U-turn.

"There is no principle that can't be overturned for competitive reasons," Mr O'Leary said. "This is the start of a new period of peace and co-operation between Ryanair and the Dublin Airport Authority. This Christmas present is directed at Aer Lingus."

He said the airline's case against the Government for a competing terminal will continue but that it won't be opposing the DAA master plan at the planning stage or in the courts.

Ryanair is to base five of its new Boeing 737-800 aircraft in Dublin and expects its traffic in to and out of Ireland to rise to over nine million over the coming year. The new aircraft will be based at a temporary boarding facility provided by the DAA at Dublin airport.