RYANAIR is taking the fight for supremacy at Liverpool John Lennon airport to rival Easyjet with three new routes and extra frequency on existing links.
Easyjet currently carries more passengers at JLA, despite Ryanair’s 41 routes outnumbering its competitor’s 23 links.
But the addition of two extra Boeing 737-800s, boosting Ryanair’s JLA fleet to eight aircraft, is expected to take the Irish carrier’s passenger levels to more than 2.5m next year, overtaking its competitor.
Announcing the additional capacity at JLA, Ryanair deputy head of sales and marketing for Europe, Dara Brady, said: “We are delighted that we are still in a position that we can grow here in Liverpool.
“We should overtake Easyjet in April after the new routes come in.”
Next year, on March 31, Ryanair will introduce two twice-weekly flights to Rimini, on the Italian east coast, and Trapini, on the west coast of the Italian island of Sicily, flying on Wednesday and Sunday and Tuesday and Friday, respectively.
The following day, the airline will reinstate its route to Lodz, in Poland, providing two flights a week on Monday and Thursday.
Four existing routes operated by Ryanair out of JLA will be boosted with extra frequencies that will take the flights to Poznan and Wroclaw, in Poland, from twice a week to three times a week, while the flights to Krakow in Poland and Faro in Portugal will be stepped up from three a week to four.
The Rimini and Trapini routes take JLA’s links with Italy to seven, making it one of the UK’s leading gateways to the Italian market outside London.
Mr Brady said they will satisfy an increasing tourism demand for Italian destinations, while the Polish flights serve the region’s established Polish community.
He said high airport costs and the UK Government’s controversial Air Passenger Duty (APD) tax were discouraging air travel, but Ryanair’s links with Liverpool remain extremely strong.
He said: “We’re shifting out of the UK in some cases because of APD, but we have a very good relationship with Liverpool.
“We will have eight aircraft here and 44 routes from next March.
