Airlines beef up summer schedules

Aer Lingus Regional and Ryanair both announced the addition of new routes to their summer schedules from yesterday.

Aer Lingus Regional, which is operated by Aer Arann, announced the addition of Birmingham and Manchester to its UK route network from Dublin.

While Ryanair added the exotic locations of Eindhoven, Krakow and Zadar, and said that they would open three bases — Chania (Greece), Fez and Marrakech (both Morocco) — by the end of this month.

To celebrate the launch of the new routes Ryanair is offering 100,000 seats on sale, a spokesperson for the airline said.

“To celebrate the opening of our newest bases, we are launching a 100,000 seat sale with fares starting from €19.99 for travel across Europe in May, which are available for booking until midnight Monday (8 Apr),” he said.

Aer Lingus said its new routes are part of a development which it expects to result in 40,000 additional seat sales.

“These routes are the ‘new beginning’ in action. They connect us with two of the UK’s largest cities and mean that for the first time, Aer Lingus Regional is servicing all of the main UK destinations from Ireland,” an Aer Lingus spokesperson said.

“The additions to our summer schedule will add over 40,000 additional seats. Taken with Aer Lingus’ existing services, it offers significant additional choice to all customers, especially business customers seeking same day returns."