Irish budget carrier Ryanair has announced it will open a base at Palma’s Son Sant Joan Airport on the Balearic Island of Mallorca, although significant cuts in Alicante will mean its Spanish network is likely to remain at a similar level during summer 2012. The airline will base four Boeing 737-800s at the facility from March 2012 enabling it to expand its seasonal network from 30 to 47 routes in the process.
The new services comprise Aarhus, Cork, Gothenburg, Haugesund, Kaunas, Krakow, Maastricht, Malaga, Magdeburg, Marseille, Oslo, Paris Beauvais, Poznan, Santander, Santiago, Stockholm and Tampere and will, according to the airline, bring its total traffic at the airport to around 2.8 million passengers per annum.
The Irish low-cost carrier is currently the fourth largest carrier on the Spanish island, a popular year-round destination for tourists from across Northern and Central Europe, Scandinavia and the Baltics. Looking at schedules for this month, the Irish budget carrier has a 12.7 per cent share of the available weekly seats behind Niki (25.4 per cent), Air Europa (16.6 per cent) and airberlin (15.8 per cent). A number of its additional routes will represent new direct links for the Mediterranean airport, although some destinations are already served on a seasonal basis and others on a year-round basis.
Meanwhile, Ryanair has confirmed that it will reduce its flying from its Alicante base by around 50 per cent during summer 2012 following a similar capacity cut for the current Northern Winter 2011/2012 schedule. The airline has blamed the cuts on what it describes as the “AENA Alicante airport monopoly” which “compelled” the carrier “to use unnecessary airbridges,” and pay some €2 million per annum in “avoidable” airbridge fees at Alicante.
“Because of AENA Alicante’s abusive decision to force Ryanair to use and pay for unnecessary airbridges since April 2011, Alicante Airport will now lose six based aircraft, 18 routes, 1.5 million passengers per annum from November 2011 to October 2012,” Ryanair said in a statement.
According to the carrier, this loss of traffic will cost AENA Alicante some €30 million a year in lost passenger payments and commercial revenues and will see the loss of more than 1,500 jobs in and around Alicante airport.
“Ryanair is the only airline capable of growing traffic rapidly at Alicante, and without us no one else seems willing to grow or use and pay for these unnecessary airbridges either. AENA Alicante are now proving that inefficient airbridges and higher fees will result in the airport suffering route, traffic and job cuts,” the airline added, noting that Alicante posted a 12 per cent decline in traffic for November, the first month of Ryanair’s cuts.
Meanwhile, last week Ryanair confirmed it will ‘build’ a new base at Billund Airport in western Denmark from next year, a facility that is just a stone’s throw from the popular legoland resort. The low-cost carrier already has a strong presence at Billund presently serving 14 international markets from the airport, but it will position two Boeing 737-800s there from March 2012 to expand its network and boost frequencies on existing services.
According to Ryanair, new routes will be launched to Carcassonne, Corfu, Krakow, Venice and Zadar, boosting its expected annual traffic beyond the 800,000 passenger figure. The airline has played an important role in helping the Danish airport grow, with total passenger numbers exceeding 2.5 million last year for only the second time in its history.
Ryanair is the dominant carrier at Billund, but local operator Cimber Sterling also has a sizeable presence offering services on 16 routes, including a mix of business and leisure destinations. Some of Europe’s flag carriers such as Air France, KLM and Lufthansa, also provide links to their respective hubs, while a larger number of charter carriers have seasonal offerings to the Mediterranean.
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