6 BASED AIRCRAFT ($600M INVEST.) & 34 ROUTES INCLUDING 4 NEW WINTER DESTINATIONS

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (18 Oct) announced its Winter 23/24 schedule for Birmingham with 34 routes, including 4 new routes to Budapest, Girona, Seville, and Valencia as well as increased frequencies on another 11 routes, including Krakow, Malta, and Turin.

To support its Winter 23/24 schedule, Ryanair will base 6 aircraft at Birmingham Airport, representing a $600m investment and supporting over 2,200 local jobs. Three of these aircraft will be Boeing 737 Gamechangers, which are highly sought by airports throughout Europe as they reduce CO₂ emissions by 16% and noise emissions by 40% as well as carrying 4% more passengers.

Ryanair’s Birmingham Winter 23/24 schedule will deliver:

• 6 based aircraft (incl. 3 Gamechanger)
• $600m investment
• 34 routes, incl. 4 new route to Budapest, Girona, Seville, and Valencia
• Supporting over 2,200 local jobs, incl. 180 highly paid aviation jobs
• Birmingham traffic to grow to 2.7m passengers 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 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 Winter schedule at Birmingham Airport and its 4 new Winter routes, the airline has launched a limited-time seat sale with fares from just £21.99, which must be booked by 20 Oct 2023, available only at www.ryanair.com.

Ryanair’s Director of Digital & Marketing, Dara Brady, said:

“Ryanair is pleased to announce our Winter 23/24 schedule at Birmingham Airport, with 34 routes including 4 new Winter routes to Budapest, Girona, Seville, and Valencia as well as increased frequencies on another 11 Winter sun and city break routes, offering Ryanair customers in the west-midlands region unbeatable choice at the lowest fares. This schedule will operate on Ryanair’s 6 based aircraft at Birmingham Airport, representing a €600m investment and supporting over 2,200 local jobs. This includes, 3 of Ryanair’s quieter, lower emission “Gamechanger” aircraft.

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.”