Ryanair have announced five new routes from Madrid to Ancona, Ibiza, Krakow, Oujda (Morocco) and Stockholm Skavsta from November 2010.

Ryanair is to open seven new routes in the autumn from Rygge airport (50kms from Oslo) and four new routes from Oslo (Torp).

Ryanair have announced a series of route, flight and frequency cuts at Dublin Airport from July, blaming the impact of the €10 tourist tax to cause numbers at Dublin to go down 12% in February.

Airline travellers faced more chaos today as Alitalia planned to axe 50 flights because of wildcat strike action at Italian airports.

RYANAIR was forced to cancel 29 of its flights from Rome as Ciampino Airport remained closed for a second day following the emergency landing of one of its aircraft there on Monday.

RYANAIR engineers are investigating the cause behind the airline’s second emergency landing — in just one week.

A Ryanair aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing today – the second in the last week.

Rome’s second-largest airport, Ciampino, was closed for about one hour today for a bomb threat, and reopened after a search did not find any explosive devices, airport officials said.

Ryanair has accused aviation agency ENAC of "anti-competitive favouritism towards Italian carriers" after the body banned the airline from operating flights on the its Rome (Ciampino) - Alghero route after May 1.

The ISEQ index of Irish shares stayed more or less level this morning, up just 1.89 points on opening to 7830.57.

Ryanair has secured a court injunction in Italy preventing the authorities at Rome's Ciampino Airport from diverting certain flights to another facility.

THE European Commission has opened an investigation into Ryanair’s use of a terminal at the airport in Tampere, Finland, a commission spokesman said.

The suspect in the failed July 21 London bombings who was arrested in Rome arrived at the city’s Ciampino airport in the Italian capital today to be extradited to Britain, Italian police said.

Security forces took up posts around the Vatican today and cleared streets for an expected 500,000 pilgrims arriving for the ceremony formally to install Pope Benedict XVI and offer the pontiff a major chance to set the tone for his papacy.

Pope Benedict XVI thanked journalists today for their coverage during the “historical” events of the papal transition.

AN Italian F16 jet fighter intercepted a suspicious plane heading to Rome yesterday, hours after the pope’s funeral and escorted it to a military airport.

An Italian F16 jet fighter intercepted a suspicious plane heading to Rome today, hours after the pop’s funeral and escorted it to a military airport.

Two Italian F16 jet fighters intercepted a suspicious plane heading to Rome’s Ciampino airport today, hours after the pope’s funeral, and escorted to a local airport.

Low cost airline easyJet said today it is establishing Dortmund International Airport as its next European base. As part of its expansion plans for Germany, the airline said it will introduce new eight routes from Dortmund.