Flights added at Leeds Bradford as it aims for 7m passengers

DISCOUNT airline Ryanair has announced more routes as it plans to grow traffic by 20% from Leeds Bradford Airport.

As well as a new route to Girona and four new summer services to Bratislava, Gran Canaria, Vilnius and Warsaw, more flights will be added to existing routes.

These include Alicante, Faro, Ibiza, Krakow, Lanzarote, Palma and Tenerife, with an average flight cost of €49 per person.

Leeds Bradford Airport is one of the first to see a 2017 schedule from the Irish airline. The airport itself is looking to grow passenger numbers to 4m over the next few years and double current numbers to 7m in the long term.

Ryanair passenger numbers will increase to 1.3m a year from the airport, and reportedly support nearly 1,000 jobs in the region.

Ryanair itself is looking to grow passengers from 106m to 180m by 2024. It already has connects 200 airports in 33 different countries.

Head of communications at Ryanair Robin Kiely was on hand at Leeds Bradford Airport yesterday with aviation development director Tony Hallwood to make the announcement.

He said that the growth of Ryanair at the airport fit into company-wide plans, and that even recent events would not hinder the airline’s commitment to Leeds Bradford.

He said: ” In terms of Brexit we were vociferous in our campaign to Remain. Obviously it didn’t go that way and now it [Brexit] has caused uncertainty, even if the people who called it aren’t there or have been removed.

“For now, it’s business as usual, but I would urge the UK Government to scrap Air Passenger Duty. In Ireland, it caused passenger numbers to decline. Complete abolition of APD only means one thing for Yorkshire, more flights, visitors and speed of growth in the inbound economy. We could also introduce more business routes if it was scrapped.

He also said that Ryanair believed there should be one new runway at each of the Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted Airports.

Mr Hallwood said: “Now there’s even more choice of destinations in amount of biz destinations we could in theory introduce in the next few years

“We’ve seen some great synergies in overseas markets with Ryanair destinations and the airline is second to none in terms of brand awareness in overseas markets.

“The additional cities are key commercial capital cities in Europe, but this growth only survives with a two way flow of traffic, we need Yorkshire to get on board too.

He said that Leeds Bradford had its eye on the Italian city of Milan, Madrid in Spain, as well as Lisbon and Bucharest as destinations he would like to see on the departure boards at the airport.

Mr Hallwood also said that improving infrastructure around the airport was key to growth at Leeds Bradford Airport, and as part of its master plan which includes the development of the ‘Parkway’ station, increasing connectivity between York, Harrogate Leeds and Bradford.

“We still believe rail connectivity is an integral part of increasing traffic,” he said.