Shannon Airport secures four new Ryanair routes as part of airline’s major summer expansion
The $400M investment comes alongside further expansion of Ryanair’s Shannon schedule next summer, with increased frequency on five established, popular routes: Manchester, Alicante, Barcelona-Reus, Lanzarote, and Malta.
A fourth based aircraft will also be in place next summer as part of the expansion.
This expansion brings Ryanair’s total summer offering from Shannon to 30 routes, the largest number ever operated by the airline from the airport.
With 1.4 million seats, including an additional 180,000 seats across the summer months, this represents a 15pc increase in seats compared to the same time last year.
Passengers will enjoy twice weekly flights on three of the new routes.
Flights to Rome and Poznán will commence on March 31, running on Tuesdays and Saturday. The year-round service to Madrid will switch to Wednesdays and Sundays for the summer season, beginning on March 31.
There will be four weekly flights to Warsaw from March 30 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Interim CEO of The Shannon Airport Group Ray O’Driscoll said the company is delighted to welcome Ryanair’s continued commitment to Shannon Airport with the new additions.
“This expansion is a strong vote of confidence in Shannon’s growth trajectory. It reflects our ongoing investment in infrastructure and passenger experience, as well as our strong commitment to working with airline partners to expand our route network and deliver greater choice for customers across the country,” he said.
“These new services enhance Shannon’s connectivity to key European cities, supporting tourism, trade and regional development, and will be warmly welcomed by both holiday makers and business travellers alike.”
Ryanair CCO Jason McGuinness echoed his sentiments and said the additional routes are thanks to the hard work of the Shannon Airport Group.
However, he also called for the expansion of the Regional Airports Programme, saying the Irish Government “needs” to support regional airports by expanding the scope of the programme to at least 3million passenger per annum.
The expansion would allow regional airports to grow traffic even more without being penalised for doing so, he added.
The latest announcement builds on Ryanair’s decision earlier this year to introduce a fourth based aircraft at Shannon Airport.
New routes to Lapland, Madeira and Madrid from Shannon for the next two winters have also been announced, as well as increased capacity on six existing popular routes – Alicante, Edinburgh, Kraków, Lanzarote, Manchester, and Wrocław over the winter period.
