Ryanair has announced four new routes from Dublin for its summer 2020 schedule.
It also emerged yesterday that the Irish carrier is moving ahead with plans to transfer some craft to its Maltese subsidiary.
The airline said it will by flying from Dublin to Marseille in France, Verona in Italy, Palanga in Lithuania, and Podgorica, Montenegro. In addition, it will be running two new summer services to Billund, Denmark and Toulouse, France.
The carrier also announced additional flights on its Bristol, Bydgoszcz, Riga and Vilnius routes from Dublin.
Overall, Ryanair will fly 160 routes out of Ireland next summer, of which 105 will be at Dublin airport.
In Cork, the carrier will run a new summer service to Katowice while adding extra flights to its Malaga and Palma routes.
Ryanair predicted that 17.2 million passenger a year would fly on the 160 routes, which it calculated would support more than 12,900 jobs at Irish airports.
‘Strong growth trajectory’
Cork Airport managing director, Niall MacCarthy, noted that the Katowice route was due to begin in October.
“With the added flights to Ryanair’s Malaga and Palma summer routes, Cork Airport is in a firm position to continue its strong growth trajectory,” he said.
Dublin Airport managing director, Vincent Harrison, welcomed news of the airline's planned extra services from the Republic's biggest gateway.
Meanwhile, McGinley aviation, which employs Ryanair contract pilots at many European bases, has told pilots in Malta that they will transfer to the Irish carrier's local subsidiary in November.
McGinley's managing director, Elizabeth Hoefsmit, wrote to pilots saying that their new "hirer" would be Malta Air, in which Ryanair invested earlier this year, from 1 November.
Ryanair confirmed the Malta Air deal in June and said that it would transfer six craft based on the Mediterranean island to the subsidiary this year.
Ms Hoefsmit said that there would be no Ryanair craft based in Malta after October 31st.
