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Ryanair aircraft on the ground. SUR
Ryanair prepares for summer with record number of flights at Malaga Airport

Ryanair prepares for summer with record number of flights at Malaga Airport

The budget Irish airline will connect the Costa del Sol with 79 destinations, adding nine new routes, and offer 1.9 million seats, around 14 per cent more than in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic

Thursday, 10 March 2022, 14:02

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Elena Cabrera, Country Manager of Ryanair in Spain and Portugal, has revealed to SUR that the budget Irish airline has prepared “the largest flight schedule in history on the Costa del Sol” for this summer season.

The new flying programme will come into effect at the end of the month - when the clocks change - and Ryanair plans to connect Malaga Airport with 79 destinations, nine more than before the pandemic. In addition, the company will offer of 1.9 million seats from the airport’s terminals, around 14% more than the 2019 capacity. The goal is to exceed five million passengers on the Costa del Sol this fiscal year for the first time, specifically forecasting 5.2 million, compared to 4.6 million in 2019.

Elena Cabrera, Country Manager of Ryanair in Spain and Portugal.
Elena Cabrera, Country Manager of Ryanair in Spain and Portugal. MIGUE FERNANDEZ

“In Malaga we are going to operate a total of 340 frequencies this summer, compared to 288 before the health crisis. We will have a full recovery with figures superior to the pre-pandemic period. We are already focused on continuing to grow. Reservations are going very well. And we are committed to flying to new destinations such as Aarhus, in Denmark; Kaunas, in Lithuania; Riga, in Latvia; Paris, Stockholm, Zagreb, Agadir and Lanzarote”, she said.

Cabrera highlighted that “Ryanair is a company with a very flexible model, which has been key to achieving this recovery so quickly. We have a very strong five-year plan with an order for 210 B737/8000 aircraft, which are a new generation of sustainable aircraft, of which two of them, from the first batch of sixty that we have received, are already in Malaga”.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Given the new uncertainty that looms for tourism after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, she explained that the rate of reservations remains unchanged for now and agrees that perhaps a diversion of European tourists to Spanish destinations may occur, although she doesn’t have the data to support it. At present Cabrera does not anticipate a foreseeable increase in ticket prices in the air transport sector due to higher oil prices. However, she points out that in the case of Ryanair the challenge is to continue offering the lowest prices and that this will be possible because they have already committed to the purchase of 80 per cent of the fuel for the whole year. “This will allow us to keep prices stable. We are going to continue giving the cheapest prices”, she pointed out.

Spectacular destination

Regarding the budget airline's strong commitment to Malaga, which she considers a strategic base of the ten that Ryanair has in Spain, she said that "it is a spectacular destination, which works very well throughout the year due to its good climate, the communications network, the cultural offer and leisure both in winter and summer", and declared herself a fan of the capital of the Costa del Sol.

New jobs

To carry out this expansion, Cabrera said that the company has opened a cabin crew selection process in Malaga to deal with the increase in routes. “At this airport we have 330 direct jobs, which rises to 4,000 indirectly. We are going to need more personnel than ever before for the expansion that will link Malaga with 26 countries through 79 routes”, she said.

As for the markets that the company is counting on for this summer, the return of the British to their usual levels stands out, as well as the Germans, Scandinavians and Dutch – but without forgetting the Spanish market, in which a route to Lanzarote has been added.

Twenty years in Spain

Cabrera also reminded that this year the company is preparing to celebrate twenty years since the Ryanair arrived on the scene in Spain, with a flight between Girona and Frankfurt. Later, in 2003, they landed on the Costa del Sol, a destination that Cabrera emphasises is "a very important point in the Ryanair network."

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