2nd plane by Sep 2008, 3 or 4 in 2009 - 30 destinations
1,000 jobs on way for airport
From the archive, first published Thursday 10th Jan 2008.
A £60 million boost for the local economy and 1,000 new jobs at Bournemouth Airport have been promised by budget airline Ryanair with the news it is to base one of its aircraft at Hurn and add five new routes to its schedule.
The Irish airline is already the biggest operator using Bournemouth Airport, where passenger traffic topped the million mark for the first time in 2007.
And a predicted four-fold boom in passenger numbers by 2010 has been fuelled by yesterday's announcement from Ryanair that from April it will make Bournemouth a base for one of its $70 million jets to fly five new routes on top of the existing seven scheduled services.
As well as launching new regular flights to the holiday hotspots of Malaga and Murcia in Spain and Palma in Majorca, the airline is adding the Polish city of Wroclaw to its list of destinations served from Bournemouth.
The April timetable changes also include the return of a three times a week service to Nantes in the north-west of France, which was dropped from Ryanair's current winter timetable.
And with Bournemouth becoming a base airport for one of the Ryanair fleet of Boeing 737-800 jets, capacity on the Glasgow route will double to allow for day return traffic between the south coast and the Scottish city.
Ryanair already accounts for around a third of passenger traffic passing through the Hurn terminal, and bosses predict the budget airline alone will carry around a million people in and out of Bournemouth in the coming year.
A second Ryanair plane is expected to be based at Bournemouth from September, with more aircraft and routes likely to follow in its wake as the airline and airport expands in tandem towards a projected four million passengers a year.
Ryanair director of scheduled revenue Sean Coyle told a press conference that there could be three or four craft at Bournemouth flying to more than 30 destinations.
Airport managing director Peter Duffy said the terminal already had the capacity to cope with the new services taking off from April and Ryanair's expansion plans were in line with the programme of work already under way.
"This growth was always anticipated and we see no problems in accommodating it," he said.
"We intend to grow with the airport in the coming years," said Mr Coyle.