Ryanair, Europe’s No. 1 airline, today (27^th Sept) launched its Winter 23/24 schedule for London (Gatwick, Luton & Stansted) with 7 new routes to Belfast, Basel, Ouarzazate, Tatry, Tirana, Treviso, and Vigo, and increased frequencies on 30 more routes, incl. Alicante, Athens, Bratislava, Cologne & Faro. To support this 15% London traffic growth, Ryanair will base 2 new B737 aircraft at Stansted for Winter 23/24 ($200m investment) bringing Ryanair’s total London-based fleet to 50, creating over 60 new high paid jobs for pilots, cabin crew and engineers at London’s fastest growing airport.

Ryanair Winter 23/24 London schedule delivers:

• 7 new routes – Belfast, Basel, Poprad, Ouarzazate, Tirana, Treviso & Vigo
• 2 new B737 a/c (50 total)
• 162 London routes in total
• Increased freq. on 30 routes
• Over 1,500 highly paid aviation & professional jobs
• London traffic grows to over 27m pax p.a.

Ryanair is the UK’s No.1 airline operating over 440 routes and carrying over 52m passengers p.a. to/from the UK on its fleet of 107 UK-based aircraft ($10.7bn investment), providing British citizens/visitors with unbeatable route choice at the lowest fares while driving year-round connectivity and inbound tourism which supports over 37,000 UK jobs.

While Ryanair continues to invest and grow in Britain, UK NATS ATC remains the biggest risk to passengers travel plans. Ryanair pays NATS almost €100m p.a. for an ATC service that is repeatedly short staffed and on 28^th Aug, collapsed altogether causing the cancellation of over 2,000 flights (over 360,000 passengers) and long delays to more than 5,000 flights (900,000 passengers) without plausible explanation. NATS followed this latest shambles with more flight disruptions at Gatwick on Thurs 14^th Sept due to staff shortages. Ryanair calls again on Transport Minister, Mark Harper, to immediately instruct NATS (where the UK Govt owns a majority) to reimburse all its airline customers for the costs they suffered due to NATS incompetence on 28 Aug last and urgently reform UK ATC to ensure that such avoidable system collapses do not recur.

To celebrate Ryanair’s 2 new aircraft and 7 new routes for London this Winter, Ryanair has launched a 2-day seat sale with fares from £29.99 available only at Ryanair.com.

In London, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said:

“Ryanair is pleased to add 7 new routes this winter from London to Belfast, Basel, Poprad, Ouarzazate, Tirana, Treviso & Vigo, as well as increased frequencies on another 30 Winter sun and city break routes. To support this growing Winter schedule, we have based 2 new aircraft at Stansted, bringing our total London-based fleet to 50 aircraft (a $5bn investment) and creating over 60 new high pay jobs.

Ryanair is the UK’s No.1 airline, and while we continue to grow and provide unbeatable route choice and low fares to our 52m p.a. UK customers, NATS are busy writing “whitewash” reports to cover up their inexplicable incompetence which led to the cancellation of over 2,000 flights (over 360,000 passengers) and long delays to more than 5,000 flights (900,000 passengers) on Mon 28/Tues 29 Aug last.

Ryanair calls on Transport Minister, Mark Harper, and the UK Govt to urgently reform ATC and guarantee UK passengers that they will not suffer any more disruptions as a result of repeated NATS failures, mismanagement & incompetence.”