Ryanair says recently launched routes at Newcastle International Airport are proving successful with summer bookings fuelled by pent-up demand.
The airline also singled out Newcastle as one of the UK's better performing airports amid well publicised travel chaos gripping other locations. Speaking to The Chronicle, Ryanair's director of digital marketing Dara Brady, who was at Newcastle in March to launch the airline's new base, said rivals' customers were turning to Ryanair routes thanks to canny decision making during the pandemic
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Mr Brady claimed Ryanair retained more staff throughout Covid were competitors made redundancies - a factor which experts say has caused the present disruption at UK airports. Ryanair's boss Michael O'Leary has blamed Brexit for staffing shortages across the industry and says an "inflexible" labour market is causing challenges.
With two planes and 60 staff based at Newcastle, Ryanair now operates 19 routes from the airport, operating about 130 weekly flights during the summer.
Mr Brady said: "Since we announced the start of the new base we've been very happy with the operation over the summer period. I think Newcastle International Airport in particular has been one of the better performing airports. There's been a lot of disruption at other airports.
"We've had a very solid start to our summer season and we'd see ourselves as the best performing airline in the UK in terms of reliability and operation.
"We're delighted to say that for people at Newcastle we've had no disruption in terms of flight cancellations. We'd launched an awful lot of new routes for the summer season including Ibiza, Menorca and Chania - with a relatively small amount of time to build up a bit of momentum but the booking profile has been very strong. Demand has been very good.
"We're now moving towards our biggest ever winter schedule at Newcastle - we'll be flying over 50 to 60 weekly flights."
Following widespread chaos for passengers at UK airports this summer - fuelled by staff shortages following Covid layoffs and a resurgence in demand for holidays - Ryanair's competitor Jet2 was withering in its assessment of airport operators.
Its founder and executive chairman Philip Meeson said most of Jet2's base airports had been "woefully ill-prepared" and branded the supposed lack of preparedness as "inexcusable" but later excused Newcastle from those comments.
Mr Brady said Ryanair understood some of those comments in relation to the wider airport landscape - particularly as the airline had made schedules known in good time - but noted Newcastle had performed well throughout the period.
He said: "In Newcastle we have a two aircraft based operation and 19 routes - by and large there's been quite a decent performance out of Newcastle. I think it would be very unfair to put Newcastle International Airport in the same bucket as a Manchester."
He added: "But it's not inaccurate in the main to say that UK airports have been under a lot of pressure and they failed to properly ramp up for the recovery. I would certainly say our operations in Newcastle - to be fair to the team up there - have gone well."
Newcastle International Airport said in the year to date, 98% of passengers got through security in six minutes or less.
When asked about potential future growth for Ryanair at Newcastle, Mr Brady hinted the latest expansion could prepare the ground for further growth in services.
He said: "Basing the aircraft there this year was a big step forward vs previous years and being based at an airport always allows for greater opportunities for growth than non-based activities.
"We work closely with the airport and we take opportunities as they come. Europe is very competitive in terms of airport charges and I think it's important that airports and the Government realise they're competing with every other European state for aircraft and passengers and that they need to remain competitive."
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