LOW-COST airline Ryanair has announced 29 new routes from Spain for the summer and increased frequency for an existing 25.
Flights will run from Valencia to Bourgogne (France), Cagliari and Palermo in Sicily (Italy), Fez and Tangiers (Morocco), and Bristol (UK), and four times weekly to Valletta (Malta) from Barcelona.
New routes will open from Palma de Mallorca to Milan, Bergamo and Rome Ciampino (Italy) and Düsseldorf Weeze (Germany); from Tenerife South to Milan Malpensa, and Gran Canaria to Venice Treviso.
Alicante flights will now include routes to Bologna (Italy), Gdansk (Poland) and Newquay in Cornwall (UK), and an additional connection will run from Santander, Cantabria to Budapest (Hungary).
Sevilla airport will get the most new routes – 13 in total – with flights between two and three times a week to Bristol, Edinburgh (Scotland, UK), Cagliari and Catania (Siciliy), Valletta, Nantes (France), Oporto (Portugal), Tangiers and Rabat (Morocco), Venice Treviso, Luxembourg, and national connections to Alicante and the island of Fuerteventura.
This means a total of 500 Ryanair routes operating from Spain, which already accounts for 37% of the company's passengers and will now increase by 9%.
A total of 41.5 million passengers are expected to fly out of 26 airports in Spain every year from summer 2018.
Chief executive officer Michael O'Leary has assured that the 20% pay rise offered to the carrier's 800 pilots will not result in any increases in flight prices, even though it will mean a further €100 million in overheads for the group over the next 12 months.
Instead of passing the cost onto the customer, O'Leary assures that the extra payout will simply mean 'reduced profits' for Ryanair.
He has urged Spain-basaed pilots' union SEPLA 'not to delay things any further' in terms of voting for the 20% pay increase and for them to reach an agreement to avoid labour conflict.
SEPLA should allow pilots to vote favourably if they wish to, O'Leary insists.
Although he has famously stated that he does not recognise SEPLA as a binding union, this is 'a separate issue' to the salary increase negotiations, he argues.
