Ryanair has announced its biggest ever schedule from Bristol Airport and expanded its aircraft fleet at the South West transport hub as part of a $500m (£407m) investment.
The budget carrier has added four new routes to Bydgoszcz in Poland, Porto, Marseille and Venice, taking the total number of destinations it flies to from Bristol to more than 30.
The airline has also increased frequencies of flights on nine of its existing routes, including Dublin, Limoges, Milan and Palma, meaning it will have grown its number of weekly flights to more than 290.
Ryanair will also add an extra plane to its Bristol operations, taking its fleet there to five, with two of those set to be the Boeing 737 8-200 model, which the company said were more “enviro efficient”, and are designed to reduce fuel burn by 16% and noise by 40%.
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The company said the growth in its services would help support more than 1,600 jobs, including 150 directly.
Bristol Airport chief executive Dave Lees said the move was a “clear demonstration of confidence” returning in the region for air travel.
“Expanding Ryanair’s route network and adding extra capacity to existing routes, gives customers in the South West easy and affordable access to air travel on an increasing number of destinations and flexibility of stay lengths, without the need to travel to other airports for their flights.
“Bristol Airport looks forward to working with Ryanair on developing their route network and also ensuring the increased use of quieter aircraft and more environmentally efficient operations in the future.”
With the announcement Ryanair said that while it welcomed a 50% air passenger duty (APD) cut previously announced by the Government for domestic travel from April next year, it called on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to fully abolish APD immediately for all travel.
Ryanair’s DAC chief executive, Eddie Wilson, said: Ryanair is driving the UK’s economic recovery through our delivery of year-round tourism, regional investment and job creation.
“However, if UK tourism is to continue to grow, especially in regional UK locations like Bristol, the Govt should immediately scrap APD in full for all travel and provide incentives for airlines, like Ryanair, to stimulate growth and recovery for the UK (an island-based economy) and its regions.”
Earlier this year Bristol Airport secured planning permission from the government to expand its maximum capacity from 10 million to 12 million passengers a year. Local residents and environmental campaigners have mounted a legal challenge against the decision, with a High Court appeal hearing held in Bristol last month.
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