Ryanair has added four new routes for the winter 2024 season – linking its London Stansted hub to Dubrovnik in Croatia, Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Linz in Austria and Reggio in Italy.
However, Ryanair used its UK expansion announcement to urge the new British Government to scrap its Air Passenger Duty (APD) airport tax, which it says is putting UK tourism at a “major disadvantage” against EU competitors.
“Ryanair can grow UK traffic, jobs, and tourism but the new Labour Govt must immediately scrap this unfair and unjustified APD tax if they are serious about implementing policies to deliver growth,” the airline said in a statement.
Ryanair’s group CEO, Michael O’Leary, added: “As an island economy on the periphery of Europe, it is vital that Ryanair continues to grow low-cost air access to and from the UK. Britain’s tourism growth is being hampered by UK APD, which unfairly imposes a £13 tax on all UK citizens and visitors, making air travel to/from the UK less competitive, particularly when other EU States, like Poland, Croatia, Italy, and Spain are lowering costs and cutting taxes, while growing rapidly.
“If the UK Government scraps APD on all flights, Ryanair will respond with rapid traffic growth for the rest of this decade, including 1,000 new jobs, 20 new UK based aircraft and a 14% growth in UK traffic to 65 million passengers per annum by 2030, just as we have done in Italy, where we added 3 new aircraft and over 20 new routes following the decision of regions, like Calabria, to scrap the Italian Municipal Tax.”
