Ryanair will open a two aircraft base in Copenhagen from December 2023, creating up to 100 direct jobs for pilots, cabin crew & engineers in a $200m new aircraft investment. Ryanair already ranks number three on Copenhagen’s list of airlines operating 20 routes and carrying 2.3 million passengers per annum to and from Copenhagen.
This new two aircraft base will allow Ryanair to offer early morning departures and late evening arrivals at Copenhagen.
With this addition Copenhagen will be Ryanair’s second Danish base in addition to Billund. Ryanair will offer 24 routes with four new destinations, namely Dusseldorf, Faro, Paris and Warsaw from Copenhagen as a part of its winter schedule. Besides the airline will also offer added frequencies to Gdansk and Krakow.
Michael O’Leary, chief executive, Ryanair said: “As Europe’s No. 1 airline, Ryanair is pleased to announce this 2 aircraft base in Copenhagen from Dec, which will complement our two aircraft base in Billund. This represents a further $200m investment by Ryanair in the recovery of air traffic and tourism in Copenhagen, which continues to lag behind its pre-Covid volumes. Ryanair believes this is because the high airport fees and the high fares being charged by NAS and SAS which hampers recovery of Danish traffic and tourism.”
“Ryanair’s new Copenhagen base will build on our existing 20 routes which we operate to/from Copenhagen on aircraft based outside Denmark. All 100 jobs for pilots, cabin crew and engineers will be recruited under the national CLA Ryanair has agreed with Danske Metal, Denmark’s largest national union, and Ryanair looks froward to continued growth and investment in Denmark as soon as the Danish Regulator makes a decision to lower airport fees at Copenhagen Airport," O'Leary added.
At a time when Copenhagen Airport lags behind the rest of Europe with its high fees and its failure to recover its pre-Covid traffic, Ryanair has called upon the Danish Regulator to lower CPH airport fees to enable all airlines to pass on these lower fees in the form of lower air fares, and allow Copenhagen to recover its pre-Covid traffic and tourism.