Oh and base 57 it seems as well as I've just checked. Also in Morocco at Fez. Flights on the routes to London-Stansted, Milan-Bergamo and Paris-Beauvais airports supporting Fez based aircraft.

Manchester-Tours now back on sale for summer 2013 (twice weekly). :) Hopefully MAN-Biarritz will be back also. Does anyone know? Thanks, DomyDom

Very general question regarding Moroccan bases - can FR employ people there easily being outside the EU or will they have to go down the route of ex-patting EU crews or a Moroccan subsidiary / joint venture?

I think the crew will just work under Irish law. Morrocco is not only not a EU country, but also the only Ryanair destinations outside Europe. Might be the case that Morroccon government approved the Ryanair's crew construction to boost tourism.

Pretty sure that Marrakech (RAK) will become a base. EIN-RAK is operated twice weekly this winter with BGY-EIN-RAK-BGY and BGY-RAK-EIN-BGY.
S13 this will rise to 4x weekly with the same routing on the Saturday flight, but the other three flights are operated from RAK (25min turnaround at EIN). Tuesday EIN-RAK flight arrives at 22:35 local and Thursday RAK-EIN flight departes 06:30 local. Must be a new base....

Fez to Stansted leaves Fez at 06:30 so I would imagine that will also be a base. I know they fell out with Morocco but with an early continuation of both the London Luton and Stansted routes (early February) to Marrakech, I would imagine that something has been done that Ryanair agrees to and when Ryanair gets what it wants, the expansion is not usually a small one so with that knowledge in mind and the timetables as well, I would expect both Marrakech and Fez to become bases. I think it seems to be Marrakech with 2 aircraft and Fez with 1, but we will see.

RAK has been rumoured for over a year...talk is it is to be confirmed shortly. FEZ was probably thrown in to sweeten the deal.

All of these announcements have been interesting. Lots of "base expansion" - but with small A/C numbers, and also just a lot of switching of routes from base to the new base, with not a lot of new routes added. I would presume these new deals will mean free or very cheap A/C parking overnight, and cheap on site services - meaning cutting costs on routes sustaining them as fuel prices increase. Very clever bit of PR aswell to the locals (even though a lot of the routes are well established...ie RAK-BVA etc).

After all new planes have been delivered, the player's favourite move has to be castling, not expansion. If fact every expansion talk looks like a pure bluff.

Ministers and other impotent people around Europe will be using Ryanair's flights between CRL-DUB from 1 Jan for 6 months. Irish Government after first refusing the offer from Ryanair have now agreeded a fare for €49.99 per passengers no matter when booked. It's expected that 15,000 trips will be made between Brussels and Dublin between Jan and June and could save 3.5 million.

Ryanair will provide the Government with 30 days credit, dedicated presidency helpline, free flight changes and assistance at airports in DUB and CRL if required. Baggage charges will not change.

Its sure to give some ministers a reality check.

You might like to change that in case the politicians sue. Sorry, couldn't resist :). Thanks for this interesting news.

that's bad news for the passengers who were waiting at the departure gate in Verona the last two months... :ouch:

Always wondered why VRN is not a base? NE Italy has a gap in the base network; it is an excellent airport in a central location for the region.

I wonder at the discrimination being applied by RYR for its arse licking to Irish politicians? A fixed price no matter when you book; no charges for changes etc. I'd be really p@£$ed off as a regular pax if I got whacked by the usual RYR add-ons and some fee-loader was treated with such grace. These politicians sure as hell won't be paying for their experience; well not in cash anyway. I wonder what AEI's response will be.

Verona is not really North East Italy. As VRN is a high fare airport for Ryanair and with just 110 km by road from on of their biggest bases Milan-Bergamo (BGY) it's not a good option for a base.

A new base at Venice-Treviso (TSF) is more likely and has been mentioned in rumours as well.

TSF as a base would be a disaster. It is extremely difficult to achieve a 25 min turnaround. The preferred takeoff is opposite to landing and thus delays occur. Make it a base with more traffic = more delays. Is it CAT 2 yet? For a foggy base it needs to be. VRN 110km from BGY? LTN - STN is less than that. MAN - LPL is less than that. NRN - EIN - MST is less than that. GRN - BCN etc. etc.

Well it's not my decision mate :ok: Don't know much about TSF airport. Ofcourse there is room for multiple bases within 100 km's, that's not the point. The high fares at VRN is the problem and for Ryanair it's not worth basing aircraft there as BGY serves a part of the VRN market as well. It's even better, apparently not worth having any routes at all. Shame VRN has the high fares as it is a nice destination

ryr deal with thegov
 

Is the source official? or is it ryr? if the latter then I'd be leery. My considerable experience in the territory says CRL is for the also rans, the pols, especially ministers will stay with EI. I hope I am wrong, but this looks like a money saver, but not for "us"

@barrymah. Read here.

"read here"

Aha it does say in the item "according to ryanair"

and then -

"The offer was agreed and is now available for booking through the Travel Management Services Contract," said Ms Creighton."

I would interpret Minister Creighton as saying "there is an option on the contract to use ryr"

In practise the Ministers' offices will book EI and the 'below stairs' will have to use ryr.

Significantly, perhaps, none of the pol corrs have mentioned this - the Evening Herald is hardly the paper of record.

As I said earlier, I hope my interpretation is wrong, I'd just LOVE to see our arrogant Ministers on ryr but it's unlikely, imo.

I don't know how you can say that 25 minutes turnaround in TSF are not possible while this is happening every day. Just my 2cents... Treviso was the first italian airport where Ryanair begins operations... and still is flying here.
If turnaround is a problem... TSF should not have 30 active routes right now.
TSF is ready for CATII operations but, as per Italian burocracy, the last signature (Military) is still missing and will came on first really disaster day with almost all flights diversions d/t fog.
Verona want a Ryanair base? Its management should think different.
VRN paid more than 17euros each passenger departed with Ryanair for more than 2 years (Just to remind that this contract has been signed from both parts, RYR & VRN) just to keep off Ryanair from Brescia airport.
Now Verona has no money...:ugh:

Ryanair to Naples and Catania?
 

FR has requested slots for Naples and Catania:

From Catania

Stockholm Skavsta (NYO)
London Luton (LTN)
Malta (MLA)
Bologna (BLQ)
Rome Ciampino (CIA)
Bergamo (BGY)
Karlsruhe/Baden (FKB)
Valencia (VLC)
Cagliari (CAG)
Memmingen (FMM)
Tampere (TMP)
Maastricht (MST)
Krakow(KRK)
Cuneo (CUF)
Parma (PMF)
Leipzig (LEJ)
Genoa (GOA)
Billund (BLL)
Turin (TRN)
Brussels Charleroi (CRL)
Perugia (PEG)
Paris Beauvais (BVA)
Treviso (TSF)
Trieste (TRS)
Eindhoven (EIN)
Ancona (AOI)
Girona (GRO)
Frankfurt Hahn (HHN)
Pisa (PSA)

From Naples:

East Midlands (EMA)
Oslo/Rygge (RYG)
Malta (MLA)
Wroclaw (WRO)
Karlsruhe/Baden (FKB)
London Stansted (STN)
Alghero (AHO)
Pisa (PSA)

That looks like they want to move there base from Tranapi to Catania