Ryanair has announced six new routes from London airports in 2023, with flights to Asturias, Belfast, Cornwall, Edinburgh, Klagenfurt and Leipzig,
The budget airline announced the details on Tuesday alongside news that record breaking numbers have already booked for Easter and summer getaways.
Continuing to operate from London Stansted, Gatwick and Luton airports, Ryaniar will offer 180 routes this year.
Chief executive Michael O’Leary said: “Ryanair is pleased to bring even more choice to London citizens and visitors for Summer ‘23.
“Our schedule has grown 10 per cent on last summer, with 3,000 weekly flights scheduled across 180 routes, including six new sunshine destinations and increased frequencies on more than 30 other popular routes like Berlin, Malaga, Mallorca, Nantes and Palma.”
Mr O’Leary said it received 2.03 million flight bookings last weekend, which beat the carrier’s previous record weekend of 1.6 million in early 2019 when seats were heavily discounted.
“Yes there’s lots of cheap seats out there, but it’s not on the back of a seat sale,” he said. “There just seems to be very strong demand out there.
“People are worrying that prices are going to rise in the summer – which I think they will.
“People are getting in early and booking their Easter and summer travel.”
Ryanair expects average fares to rise this year by “the high single digits” in percentage terms compared with 2022.
Mr O’Leary has hit out at Rishi Sunak for the government’s Rates for Air Passenger Duty [APD] which he feels should be reduced further.
He added: “While the halving of APD on domestic flights from Apr ‘23 has allowed Ryanair to add more domestic routes to our UK schedule for Summer ’23 – including London Stansted to Belfast, Cornwall and Edinburgh – if we are to continue to grow and drive traffic and tourism recovery for the UK, prime minister Sunak should immediately scrap APD for all travel and provide incentives for airlines like Ryanair to stimulate growth and recovery for the UK, including London.”
