Airport Attracts Two New Budget Services to Spain

RYANAIR has announced two new scheduled routes to Spain from Leeds Bradford International Airport.

The budget airline will operate flights three times a week to Alicante and four times a week to Girona Barcelona, starting this winter.

Bridget Dowling, the sales and marketing manager at the airline, told the Yorkshire Post: “The talk at the moment is about the rising cost of fuel, but, just to make it clear, Ryanair is still on track for traffic growth on our entire route network.

“We carried 51m passengers last year and will deliver 60m this year. In spite of rising costs things are still looking good.”

She also said she expected strong inbound growth from the new flights.

Tony Hallwood, commercial and aviation development director at Leeds Bradford, said: “Our airport has a very clear strategy for growth and we want to work closely with partners that want to grow new routes and services.

“From our perspective we are pleased to see Ryanair developing its range of international services.”

The Alicante service starts on October 28; the Girona Barcelona service begins on October 1. Both will use Boeing 737-800 airliners.

The announcement follows the decision by Ryanair to cut flights between Dublin and Leeds Bradford by 31 per cent from 19 to 13 a week next winter.

Yesterday the airline also announced substantial cuts in its number

of flights from Stansted Airport in Essex next

winter.

Ryanair said it would lose less money this winter by sitting eight aircraft on the ground rather than flying them “at an expensive airport like Stansted”.

The Irish carrier said a request to Stansted operator BAA to operate the eight aircraft in return for a substantial discount on airport charges had been refused.

The airline said later it was closing operations at seven of its European bases from November 4 to December 19.

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