Irish ultra-low-cost airline Ryanair has announced five new flight routes from a regional UK airport set to launch this winter. The routes include Brussels – a popular Christmas market destination – as well as Hungary’s Budapest, Gdansk and Wroclaw in Poland and the Mediterranean island of Malta.
Meanwhile, flights to Spain’s Alicante, Dublin, and Krakow, Poland’s second-largest city, will also increase in frequency. The airline also confirmed it would be adding a “gamechanger” third plane to Newcastle Airport, which handles nearly four and a half million passengers annually. This represents a further 120,000 seats on sale a year, also commencing this winter. These additions form part of an impressive £300 million investment in Newcastle Airport.
To celebrate, Ryanair has launched a two-day seat sale with flights on offer from £29.99.
Ryanair’s CCO Jason McGuinness said: “This Winter Ryanair will operate a record schedule at Newcastle that will deliver more than 1m annual passengers.”
Newcastle Airport’s COO, Richard Knight, added: “Brussels is a brand new connection for the Airport’s departure board and will provide great connectivity for both leisure and business passengers to the capital of Belgium.
“The addition of more winter flights to Budapest, Gdańsk, Malta and Wrocław will provide additional flight options for passengers looking to explore these popular destinations from the region.”
Ryanair is not the only airline to announce new hard-to-beat budget flight routes this summer. Wizz Air has also announced five new flights to several popular Spanish holiday destinations, leaving from London with fares starting at just £17.99 one way. The Hungarian budget airline announced flights to Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Bilbao and Seville all departing from Luton Airport. While this is an exciting prospect for holidaymakers, not all are on board with the move.
Jaroslaw Grabczak, head of commercial product at Thomas Cook and eSky Group online travel agency has raised concerns that this is likely to contribute to pressure on local housing, infrastructure and the “social fabric of communities”.
“The rapid growth of air travel, particularly driven by low-cost carriers like Wizz Air and Ryanair, funnels huge volumes of visitors into already saturated destinations,” he said.
In May, TUI also announced flights to three brand new destinations in a major expansion to its 2026 summer programme at Cardiff Airport. The new routes include Hurghada in Egypt, Faro in Portugal and Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.