Ryanair , Europe's biggest budget airline, named Madrid as its eighteenth European base today, and said it would start flying from the Spanish capital from mid-November.
Ryanair, which launched a €1.48 billion bid for Ireland's Aer Lingus last week, said it expected to fly one million passengers a year on the new routes.
The Irish low-cost carrier said in a statement it would fly from Madrid to 14 destinations including Dublin, Paris, Brussels, Oslo, East Midlands and Bournemouth in the UK and Gothenburg and Malmo in Sweden.
It already uses Girona airport, near Barcelona, as a Spanish hub and flies to 13 other destinations around the country.
Its rival, British low-cost easyJet in August named Madrid as a base for European and domestic flights from February, but few of the two airlines' routes will overlap.