Ryanair, Albania’s fastest growing airline today (Thurs, 14 Aug) announced it would open a new – 3 aircraft – base at Tirana Airport from April 2026, basing 3 new B737-800 aircraft – a $300m invest. – supporting over 3,000 jobs, incl. 100 new high-paid jobs for pilots and cabin crew.

Ryanair’s new Tirana base will expand its market share in Albania, with over 450 weekly flights on 33 routes for S26, including 10 exciting new routes to Birmingham, Dublin, Milan, Malta, Naples, Pescara, Poznan, Trieste, Turin, and Verona, as well as increased frequencies on 9 existing routes such as Bari, London, Prague, Stockholm, and Warsaw.

Ryanair’s new Tirana S26 base will deliver:

• 3 based a/c – $300M invest.
• 10 new routes to Birmingham, Dublin, Milan, Malta, Naples, Pescara, Poznan, Trieste, Turin, and Verona
• 33 total routes across 13 countries
• Traffic grows to 4m pax p.a.
• Supp. over 3,000 jobs in Albania

Over the next 5 years, Ryanair will continue to invest in Albania, incl. up to 6 based aircraft ($600m invest.), growing to over 5m passengers p.a., opening over 20 new routes, supporting over 4,000 jobs by 2030, provided always that Albania maintains its policy of low access costs and zero aviation taxes to continue stimulating traffic and tourism growth while increasing investment, and jobs.

To celebrate this new S26 – 3 aircraft – Tirana base, Ryanair has announced a 3-day seat sale, with fares starting from just €24,99 for travel in Oct/Nov, available exclusively at ryanair.com.

Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary said:

“As Albania’s only truly low fares airline, Ryanair is pleased to announce this new S26 – 3 aircraft – Tirana base. Since launching our first Albania flights in Nov 2023, Ryanair has worked closely with our partners in Tirana Airport to deliver ambitious growth, which will now see Ryanair’s traffic grow to over 4m passengers in 2026, with 3 new B737-800 aircraft ($300m invest.) based at Tirana, supporting over 3,000 local jobs, and operating 33 routes, incl. 10 new routes to Birmingham, Dublin, Milan, Malta, Naples, Pescara, Poznan, Trieste, Turin and Verona.

Ryanair’s continued growth at Tirana, offers Albania a massive opportunity  to grow its air traffic, tourism & jobs as Ryanair plans to grow to 5m passengers p.a. and base up to 6 a/c at Tirana in a $600m investment which adds over 20 new routes by 2030, provided of course that Albania maintains its current low access costs and zero aviation taxes which stimulates rapid growth in traffic, tourism, investment, and jobs.”

Tirana Airport’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Piervittorio Farabbi said:

“Upon starting the operations in Albania back in November 2023, the Ryanair team came with a slogan of ‘Low Fares Revolution’ in Albania. Today, we mark a pivotal moment in this revolution announcing the opening of a base in Tirana. Starting next summer season, there will be much more opportunities to explore the world from Tirana and to expose touristic Albania to more countries. Such decision from a partner airline, can only come as a result of a bold commitment on our side to offer operational excellence. We have heavily invested to expand operational capacities both landside and airside with an extended runway, additional parking stands, renovated apron and taxiways and expanded terminal tripled in size. Passenger processing needs to be fast and reliable; that’s why we invested in advanced digitalization in check in, boarding and passport control. We are proud to be among the fastest airports that are transformed from operations to a base within only 30 months.”

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, and the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) today (Wed, 13 Aug) announced that they will extend their long-standing partnership for 2026, marking the 9^th year of supporting European students with super low fares so that they can travel during their educational exchange.

Through this exclusive partnership, registered ESN students can access a dedicated Erasmus booking platform on the Ryanair.com website, where they can avail of a 10% discount on four one-way flights (or 2 round-trips) and a free 20kg checked-in bag with every flight booked.

With the 2025-2026 academic year starting soon, ESN students can now book their low fare Ryanair flights across the airlines industry-leading network of 235+ destinations with these exclusive ESN travel discounts through the dedicated platform at Ryanair.com.  

Ryanair’s Director of Comms, Jade Kirwan, said:

“Ryanair is pleased to announce the extension of our exclusive partnership with the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) for the 2025-2026 academic year, further supporting student mobility by offering registered ESN students across Europe a range of exclusive flight offers, including generous discounts and free baggage options. As Ryanair continues to grow and invest in Europe, we are delighted to support the EU flagship Erasmus programme and the incredible opportunities offered to their student members.”

ESN’s Treasurer, Rui Vinha, said:

“This is another year of commitment from ESN and Ryanair to provide easier and affordable travels for students to their mobility destinations.”

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Wed, 13 Aug) welcomed the Edinburgh Sheriff Court’s decision to convict an unruly passenger who disrupted flight RK5593 from Edinburgh to Lanzarote on 5 July 2024 shortly after take-off by smoking, consuming his own alcohol, and verbally abusing other passengers onboard. This passenger was one of three disruptive passengers whose inexcusable behaviour forced this flight to turnback to Edinburgh, causing 6 crew and 178 passengers – many of whom were travelling on holiday with young family – to suffer unnecessary disruption.

The Edinburgh Sheriff Court issued this passenger with a Community Payback Order and sentenced him to 225 hours of community service.

Ryanair is committed to ensuring that all passengers and crew travel in a comfortable and stress-free environment free of unnecessary disruption caused by a tiny number of unruly passengers. Ryanair has a strict zero tolerance policy towards passenger misconduct and will continue to take action to combat unruly passenger behaviour on aircraft for the benefit of the vast majority of passengers who do not disrupt flights.

A Ryanair spokesperson said:

“We welcome the Community Payback Order of 225 hours community service issued to this passenger by the Edinburgh Sheriff Court, which demonstrates just one of the many consequences that passengers who disrupt flights will face as part of Ryanair’s zero tolerance policy, and we hope this action will further deter disruptive behaviour on flights so that passengers and crew can travel in a comfortable and respectful environment.”

Ryanair today (Tue, 12 Aug) released its August OTA Survey, which exposes OTAs, eDreams, Tix, Vola & Latamy, for overcharging customers up to 148% over Ryanair’s website prices. These OTAs, none of whom have distribution agreements with Ryanair continue to inflate prices with eDreams being the biggest overcharger, charging €15.01 for a reserved seat that costs just €6.05 on Ryanair.com – an overcharge of 148%.

Ryanair continues to campaign to protect consumers from harmful practices and significant overcharging by OTAs such as Vola, Tix, Latamy, and eDreams. Ryanair continues to urge EU Govts, Consumer Ministers, and Protection Authorities to take action, calling for mandatory transparency in OTA pricing, in line with the transparent price standards upheld by Ryanair’s “Approved OTA” partners. Yet many of Europe’s Consumer Agencies and Ministers continue to ignore this consumer harm by these overcharging OTAs. It is especially noteworthy that eDreams – a Spanish OTA – continues to overcharge its customers without action or sanction from Spain’s useless Consumer Minister, Pablo Bustinduy.

Ryanair’s Dara Brady said:

“Our August survey shows that a number of OTAs who have no agreement with Ryanair such as eDreams, Tix, Vola and Latamy continue to harm unsuspecting consumers with significant overcharges of up to 148% over Ryanair website prices. Yet EU Govts and Consumer Protection Authorities, and Spain’s useless Consumer Minister Bustinduy does nothing to prevent this harm to Spanish consumers. They continue to turn a blind eye to this ongoing consumer harm.

We call on EU Govts and Consumer Protection Authorities to take action against these OTA overcharges, which are causing real harm to consumers all over Europe and particularly in Spain where the overcharging OTA, eDreams, has a large footprint.”

PLATFORM ENSURES PASSENGERS HAVE FULL TRANSPARENCY ON FARES WHEN BOOKING RYANAIR FLIGHTS THROUGH TRAVEL AGENCIES

Ryanair, Europe’s No. 1 airline, has today (Mon, 28 July) announced the launch of “Travel Agent Direct” (TAD) a new direct, authorised distribution platform, designed to allow offline travel agents to book Ryanair flights directly, ensuring full transparency for passengers.

This new booking platform is the latest development in Ryanair’s distribution commitment to only partner with trusted and authorised travel agencies, to book Ryanair flights for their customers, with full price transparency and assurance that customers will receive essential flight updates directly with no need to complete Ryanair’s customer verification. This is in stark contrast to unauthorised online and offline travel agencies who refuse to partner with Ryanair, and who continue to scrape data and mislead customers with hidden mark-ups.  

Ryanair’s Travel Agent Direct will simplify the process for traditional travel agencies by enabling them to access Ryanair’s industry leading network of 3,600+ daily flights to over 230 destinations across Europe.

Ryanair’s CMO Dara Brady said:

“We are delighted to launch our Travel Agent Direct platform which means authorised travel agencies, will have access to Ryanair’s low-fare flights to over 230 destinations for their customers, provided they ensure full price transparency for all Ryanair flights and products. The launch of TAD is a further demonstration of our ongoing commitment to fair and transparent distribution practices as passengers will now only see true Ryanair prices and will be guaranteed that their contact details will be provided to Ryanair, so that we can contact them directly for essential information about their flight. As Ryanair grows to 300 million passengers p.a. by 2034, we look forward to expanding our partnerships with trusted travel agencies across Europe.”

Ryanair, the UK’s No.1 low fares airline, renewed its call on NATS CEO, Martin Rolfe, to resign after 6,000 passengers travelling to/from the UK on Tues (5^th Aug) suffered avoidable ATC delays due to repeated NATS mismanagement and staff shortages.

These latest NATS ATC delays come less than a week after a NATS ATC system failure forced the closure of UK Airspace, causing delays of over 4hrs which unfairly disrupted thousands of passengers. These repeated NATS ATC disruptions show that Martin Rolfe has failed to learn anything from the August 2023 NATS system outage and reinforces his clear incapability to sufficiently manage and staff NATS ATC services. The only solution to these repeated NATS ATC disruptions is for Martin Rolfe to quit and let someone competent take over.

Ryanair’s Director of Comms, Jade Kirwan, said:

“It is high time that Martin Rolfe shows UK passengers due consideration by stepping down as NATS CEO and allowing someone competent take over, who won’t preside over UK passengers being disrupted time and time again due to NATS staff shortages and repeated ATC system failures.

There is no excuse for 6,000 UK passengers to have suffered ATC delays today (Tues, 5 Aug) – less than a week after thousands more passengers were disrupted by yet another NATS ATC system failure. The UK ATC service is in shambles at the hands of Martin Rolfe and must urgently be reformed, starting with his immediate resignation.”

“SLEIGH” CHRISTMAS 2025 WITH RYANAIR’S LOW FARE LAPLAND FLIGHTS

Ryanair, Europe’s no. 1 airline, has today (Tues, 5 Aug) announced its Winter 2025/26 Lapland-Rovaniemi schedule for the UK, with 2x return flights across three new routes, Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester.

Lapland is a winter wonderland like no other, with enchanting reindeer and husky sleigh rides through snow-covered forests, skies filled with dancing lights, and endless activities that will leave lasting memories,  not to mention being the home of the big man himself. So, whether you’re seeking adventure, festive fun, or a wholesome weekend away with family/friends, Lapland offers an unforgettable experience.

Ryanair’s Winter 2025/26 Lapland-Rovaniemi flights are available to book now at ryanair.com.

Ryanair’s Director of Communications, Jade Kirwan, said:

“Christmas has come early for our UK customers with the launch of Ryanair’s Winter 2025/26 Lapland schedule, offering 2x weekly return flights across three new routes, Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester.

Lapland is like waking up in a dream, filled with magical experiences that you will share forever, including miles of glistening snow, reindeer & husky rides, snowball fights, the northern lights, Christmas-themed parks and of course, home to the big man himself.

It’s never too early to start your Christmas planning. Book your Winter 2025/26 Lapland flights at ryanair.com now.”