Irish Low-Cost Carrier (LCC) Ryanair (FR/RYR) has applied for enough slots to base 9 aircraft at Berlin’s Tegel airport (TXL/EDDT) following a deal which saw Easyjet pick up former Air Berlin slots.
Easyjet and Lufthansa both purchased aircraft and slots when Air Berlin collapsed earlier this year in a deal that Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary called a “stitch up”. Easyjet‘s side of the deal saw them take on 25 aircraft and a large number of slots at Berlin’s Tegel airport, a deal which is currently being examined by EU competition regulators.
Ryanair says that the nine aircraft at Tegel will be in addition to nine aircraft based at Berlin‘s Schonefield airport (SXF/EDDB).
In a statement David O’Brien, Ryanair’s chief commercial officer, said: “Ryanair has applied for slots at Berlin Tegel and is prepared to invest up to $1bn in additional Berlin aircraft and double its Berlin traffic to 10 million over the next 18 months.
“This investment would guarantee access to Ryanair’s lowest fares, and enable Berlin citizens and visitors to avoid the emerging high fare Lufthansa/Easyjet duopoly.”
The LCC claims that the slots would replace around 30% of Air Berlin’s capacity with low-cost options from Ryanair.
In 2017, Ryanair offered just under 3 million seats from the German capital with Easyjet offering nearly 6 million.
