2 BASED AIRCRAFT ($200M INVEST), 12 ROUTES (1 NEW) AND MORE WINTER SUN FOR NEWCASTLE CUSTOMERS WITH EXTRA FLIGHTS TO ALICANTE & TENERIFE

Ryanair, Europe’s No. 1 airline, today (20^th Sept) launched its Winter 23/24 schedule for Newcastle with 12 routes, including a new Winter sun route to Paphos, and extra flights to Alicante and Tenerife, offering customers in the north-east even more route choice at the lowest fares when booking their Winter breaks. To support this growth, Ryanair will base 2 aircraft at Newcastle Airport during the Winter 23/24 season ($200m investment).

Ryanair’s Winter 23/24 Newcastle schedule delivers:

• 2 based a/c ($200M investment)
• 12 routes – including Alicante, Faro, Gran Canaria, Krakow, Malaga and Tenerife.
• New Paphos route
• Extra flights on 2 routes – Alicante (4x per week) & Tenerife (3x per week).
• Supp. over 770 local jobs, incl. 60 highly paid aviation jobs
• Newcastle traffic grows to over 1m 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 28th 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 14th 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 new Newcastle – Paphos route this Winter, Ryanair has launched a 2-day seat sale with fares from £29.99 available only at Ryanair.com.

Speaking in Newcastle, Ryanair’s Dara Brady said:

“Ryanair is pleased to provide even more choice and lower fares to our Newcastle customers for Winter 23/24 with 12 routes, including a new route to Paphos, and even more flights on 2 very popular Winter sun routes – Alicante and Tenerife. To support this growth, we will base 2 based aircraft at Newcastle Airport during Winter 23/24.

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.”