Irish budget airline Ryanair (FR/RYR) has opened its two aircraft summer base at Newcastle Airport (NCL/EGNT) bringing 10 new routes and 60 directly-employed jobs to the North-East.
The new base will see Ryanair fly a total of 19 routes from Newcastle and up to 130 flights per week.
New routes from Newcastle include Chania, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Krakow, Menorca, Milan, Paphos, Riga, and Zadar will holidaymakers a wider choice from the region than even before the pandemic.
Ryanair’s Director of Marketing, Dara Brady said: “Ryanair is thrilled to announce its largest Newcastle schedule that offers 130 weekly flights across 19 routes, including 10 new routes to fantastic destinations such as Chania, Milan, and Zadar. The opening of this base and introduction of these new routes from Newcastle reinforces our commitment to increasing connectivity, travel options and inbound tourism to the area as Ryanair will now offer 40% more capacity than it did pre-pandemic.
“We are delighted to open this new base and strengthen our relationship with Newcastle Airport, which will now host a fleet of two Ryanair aircraft.“
The move by Ryanair equates to a £152m investment by the budget airline in Newcastle airport and the additional jobs will be a welcome boost.
Newcastle International Airport’s Chief Executive, Nick Jones added: “Today [29th March] sees a significant investment and commitment from Ryanair at Newcastle International Airport which will also benefit the wider North East, creating hundreds of new jobs and providing an even bigger choice of destinations.
“From today [29th March], Ryanair will operate a total of 19 routes from our Airport, including the brand-new destinations of Zadar in Croatia, Chania in Crete, Milan in Italy and Riga in Latvia. We look forward to welcoming even more Ryanair passengers through our doors this summer.”
