Ryanair has praised Liverpool John Lennon Airport as it marks 35 years of operating from the city.
On Thursday (June 1), the airline welcomed its 35 millionth passenger through the Speke-based airport. This came as it celebrates 35 years in the city, having first flown from Dublin to Liverpool in 1988.
Ryanair was the first low-cost airline to operate from Liverpool and its presence has helped drive the airport's growth over the last four decades.
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Marking the twin milestones at Liverpool for the Irish airline, Ryanair's head of communications Jade Kirwan told the ECHO: "It all comes back to our story of having 35 years here. We started off with 20,000 passengers, which was a big number for the time and our operation scale for the time.
"We've grown massively to having had 35 million passengers over the years. That's no small feat.
"We've been adding in capacity, we've gone up from three aircraft last summer, we now have four this summer. There is huge consideration that comes in about where we place our aircraft to respond to demand and schedule optimisation.
"But a lot of it is weighed on our relationship with the airport and other factors like airport efficiency always come into play. It's such a good sign of a good relationship with the airport.
"I think that we're celebrating 35 years of operations there speaks magnitudes to that well. It is an airport that is quite full, but we would love to see more growth, but you're limited by the physical factors."
The Irish budget airline will increase its offering to more than 255 weekly flights across 31 routes from the airport this summer. Included in its offering are four new destinations Ibiza, Madrid, Rome and Shannon, while it will also increase capacity on flights to Alicante, Cork, Dublin, Knock, Paris, Reus and Tenerife.
Earlier this year, Ryanair announced the expansions to its operation in the city this summer. As well as the new routes and increased number of flights, it will base a new plane at the airport in a move which has created 30 jobs.
Ms Kirwan said the expansion at Liverpool is a vote of confidence in an airport which offers what Ryanair wants.
She said: "There are a number of things we look for in our airport partners. Efficient, progressive airports where our customers are having a strong consumer journey.
"They're walking into an airport, then getting through security on time, there's outlets available to them - that kind of stuff. They're the kind of things that we look at.
"We've been operating there (Liverpool) for 35 years now so they must be doing something right."
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