Ryanair insists it will still shift expansion plans away from Britain this year, despite announcing a new deal with Stansted Airport, their largest European base. The airline on Thursday confirmed it had struck a deal with Manchester Airports Group, Stansted’s owner, which will see it introduce nine new routes, serving 20 million passengers annually through the London gateway.
Ryanair’s chief commercial officer David O’Brien defended the airline’s decision saying the new deal with Stansted doesn’t affect its resolve to venture away from the UK following the referendum result. According to Mr O’Brien, the Brexit vote caused Ryanair’s to scale down on the expansion plans it had for the UK this year.
“If you take Romania and Bulgaria combined, which is 30 million people, our growth there will be more in absolute terms than it will be in the UK this year,” he said.
He added that the airline had begun to focus on central Europe, having opened new bases at German airports, such as Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Nuremberg as well as Czech capital Prague.
Most of Ryanair’s new routes launching this year will be to Southern Europe, where most British holidaymakers will be travelling to.
Mr O’Brien disagrees with the assumption that with a weakened sterling, visitors will troop the UK. “We don’t see people racing to the beaches of Harrogate,” he said.
In the new plan, starting next summer, Ryanair will fly three times daily from Stansted to Copenhagen and daily to Naples and Nice. It will also add flights to Beziers, Clermont, Grenoble, Strasbourg and Cagliari.
Stansted chief executive, Andrew Cohan, said the deal will see the airport serve more than 25million passengers a year, in the next 12 months.