Ryanair

Ryanair today (2 December) launched a £1* one way ski fare for travel during the months of December, January and February to celebrate the early start of the ski season.

Ryanair yesterday voiced its objection to the awards given to London Heathrow and Manchester Airports at the recent British Travel Awards.

Ryanair has confirmed that its campaign to defend the rights of girls to take their clothes off for charity is taking YouTube by storm with over 150,000 people logging on to view behind the scenes footage of the making of Ryanair’s Cabin Crew Charity Calendar 2009, which UK politician Mary Honeyball criticised as ‘soft porn’.

Ryanair has today (26 November) announced its sixth route from London Gatwick with the launch of a new daily service to/from Dusseldorf (Weeze) from 7 January 2009. This follows Ryanair’s recent announcement of routes from Gatwick to Barcelona (Girona) and Alicante.

Ryanair has slammed proposals by Blackpool Airport to introduce an Airport Development Fee with effect from 5 January 2009. This fee will be levied on all passengers without exception after that date and will increase the cost of travel through this small regional airport.

In Liverpool yesterday, Ryanair (Tuesday 25 November 2008) condemned the UK Government's increase in air passenger duty (APD) for short haul traffic from £10 to £11 in 2009 and £12 in 2010 as regressive, damaging to the UK tourism industry (when visitor numbers are already falling) and devastating for regional airports where passengers and visitors demand low fares and are most price sensitive.

Ryanair has announced it will close the routes in and out of Maastricht Aachen Airport (MAA) as per January 8th 2009. During the winter months the Dutch governments “ecotax” hinders the sustainability of the operations. The airport and Ryanair are in negotiation regarding the continuation of flights during the 2009 summer season.

Ryanair has confirmed that it will close all of its routes to/from Fuerteventura from 31 January unless local tourism group AIE honours the commercial agreement it entered into with Ryanair to promote Fuerteventura as a tourist destination.

Ryanair announced yesterday that it will dramatically reduce the cost of its annual multi-trip travel insurance by 45%, slashing the cost of annual travel insurances to just £25 and, unlike other insurance policies, Ryanair’s low cost standard annual multi-trip insurance does not require applicants to hold high cost private health insurance.

Ryanair has today (Tuesday, 18th November 2008) released 500,000 free seats for travel throughout Europe in December, January and February as it celebrated the launch of two new London (Gatwick) routes to Barcelona Girona (daily) and Alicante (twice daily) from the 18th December, increasing the number of routes Ryanair operates from Gatwick to five.

Ryanair has announced the appointment of John Booty as Sales & Marketing Manager, UK & Ireland.

Ryanair has extended its partnership agreement with coach operator Terravision which will continue to offer great value coach services to Ryanair passengers travelling from Ryanair’s airports in Rome, Milan, Liverpool, London - Luton, London - Stansted, Pisa, Dublin, Bratislava, Verona, and Venice.

Ryanair announced half year profits of €215m, 47% down on last year’s interim profits as half year fuel costs more than doubled from €392.7m to €788.5m. Traffic however grew by 19% to 32m, as average fares fell by 4% to €47, while total revenues grew by 16% to €1.8bn.

Ryanair has announced seven new international and four new domestic routes for Bologna from March 2009. These new routes, which go on sale today, will slash the cost of flying to/from Bologna as passengers avoid Alitalia’s high fares and fuel surcharges and secure Ryanair’s guaranteed lowest airfares and no fuel surcharge.

Ryanair today (Thursday, 30th October 2008) announced that from May 2009 it will base two aircraft at Trapani and confirmed that it will not open a base at Forli after the airport withdrew the agreement it had reached with Ryanair.

Ryanair has launched a €100 rescue fare for Sterling passengers who may have been left stranded by the bankruptcy of the Nordic airline yesterday. This fare applies to flights returning to Aarhus, Billund, Gothenburg, Oslo (Torp) and Stockholm (Skavsta).

Ryanair has this week launched its brand-new services from East Midlands Airport to Prague, Faro, Paris (Beauvais) and Fuerteventura. Ryanair now operates a choice of thirty-one destinations for the 2008 winter season.

Ryanair yesterday celebrated the launch of its new route from Bournemouth to Paris Beauvais and well as the re-introduction of its Milan Bergamo route. Among the first passengers to check-in for today’s Bournemouth – Paris Beauvais flight were Manila and Vallipuram Chandrabose, with their daughter Dorinda. The Bournemouth-based family were going to spend a little time in Paris before meeting up with friends and travelling to Lourdes, before returning back to Paris.

Ryanair today (28 October) celebrated the launch of its three new routes from Bristol to Gdansk, Szczecin and Marrakesh by offering one million £1 (including taxes and charges) seats for travel in November, December and January, available on ryanair.com until midnight Thursday 30 October.

Ryanair had today launched 14 brand-new services from Birmingham Airport - to Malaga, Alicante, Murcia, Palma, Katowice, Krakow, Frankfurt (Hahn), Fuerteventura, Prague, Szczecin, Derry, Dusseldorf (Weeze), Kaunas and Bologna. Ryanair now operates a choice of over thirty destinations from Birmingham including flights to Dublin, Barcelona (Girona), Porto, Oslo (Torp), Bratislava, Stockholm (Skavsta), Biarritz and many more destinations.

Ryanair is today (Tuesday 28 October) celebrating inaugural flights on seven new routes - to Derry, Kaunas, Rzeszów, Szczecin, Trapani, Beziers and Biarritz - from London Luton Airport. Today will see four routes take to the sky - Kaunas, Derry, Szczecin and Trapani. Yesterday (27 October) saw the inaugural Beziers flight. And in the coming days, Rzeszów and Biarritz will commence operation.

Ryanair today (28 October) launched eight new routes from London Stansted - to Malaga, Fuerteventura, Ibiza, Madrid, Tenerife South, Katowice, Bologna and Zweibrucken. Ryanair celebrated by offering 1 million £1 (including taxes and charges) seats for travel in November, December and January which are available to buy on ryanair.com until midnight Thursday 30 October.

Ryanair launched two of its three new destinations from Glasgow Prestwick Airport yesterday. And the one hundred and seventy-eight passengers checking in for this afternoon's flight to Tenerife were treated to a carnival atmosphere in the terminal.

Ryanair has announced the closure of its base at Valencia following the refusal of the Comunitat Valenciana to engage in constructive discussions in relation to the promotion of the airport and its routes across Ryanair’s network in Europe. The closure will lead to a loss of over 70 weekly Ryanair flights, 750,000 passengers per annum and over 750 jobs in the region.

Ryanair has announced that it will open two new Italian bases in Alghero and Cagliari, in March 2009. These two new bases will create 8 new domestic and 11 new international routes to/from the island of Sardinia.