Ryanair is revving up the competition by laying on 20 new routes from Germany’s leading airport, Frankfurt.
Currently, the carrier uses Frankfurt-Hahn airport which is some 120 kilometres from the city of Frankfurt.
Flights out of Frankfurt’s proper airport will begin this summer and carry over into the airline’s winter schedule.
CEO Michael O’Leary told a press conference on Tuesday that they would be flying to “sexy” destinations in Europe such as Rome, Madrid, London and sunshine holiday spots.
The agreement, which included lower fees, reached between the Irish low-cost airline and the airport operator has put the wind up Lufthansa which has always been the key airline there.
But Ryanair does not necessarily want to upstage Lufthansa completely. O’Leary said Frankfurt will “never be a very large airport for Ryanair” because it is not interested in providing internal flights within Germany.
It is aiming to attract about 8 or 10 million of the 61 million travellers using Frankfurt every year.
O'Leary reiterated his pessimism over the future consequences of Brexit if the UK leaves common European air travel regulations in two years.
Ryanair relies on British passengers for around 25% of its revenue, but fears there could be “no flights to or from the UK in March 2019” unless an arrangement is quickly agreed.
The airline has already taken a knock from the fall in the value of sterling which resulted from the referendum.
"Things are going to change, and they're going to change for the worse" as Brexit approaches, O'Leary forecast.
