Ryanair to expand Irish domestic routes, serve Belfast?

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Ryanair is in talks with four Irish airports about new routes to Dublin and could announce these routes as early as next month, according to the airline’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary.

The airline is also in discussions with Belfast International Airport with a view to setting up operations there as soon as British Airways leaves the airport, O’Leary said.

“In Ireland the airports that will fit our planes are Knock, Kerry, Shannon and Derry.

“Are they all looking for a domestic flight to Dublin? Yes they are. Will they get one? We have no idea until someone comes up with a package that’s better.”

O’Leary said he could not say for certain when the next domestic routes would be opened – “it will be whenever the airports come up with a competitive package. That could be October, or that could be October of two years time.”

He said there was no chance of Ryanair running any flights to Galway Airport as the runway was too short for the airline’s Boeing 737s. O’Leary said the airline’s recent decision to launch a Cork-Dublin service was not taken purely to launch Ryanair into Ireland’s domestic market.

“Last month we had no intention of doing a Cork-Dublin route,” he said. “But one of the reasons that we chose Cork-Dublin was because we wanted to base an aircraft at Cork and do Cork-Gatwick to compete with EasyJet.

“And if you do two Gatwicks, the choice is then do you do two something elses, or do you find a short sector and do three. So instead of getting four flights a day you get five, and that’s what we have now.”

Ryanair is hopeful of launching flights from Belfast in the future, O’Leary said.

“We are not there because the airport has had this strange relationship with British Airways. British Airways threatened Belfast about five or six years ago: ‘If you let Ryanair in we will pull out.’

“But now British Airways are going to pull out anyway, and when they announce they are pulling out, the airport will be all over us like a rash. And they will give us the cost deal we deserve.”

O’Leary said that some of Ryanair’s planned route launches for later this year might be held up by the strike at plane-manufacturer Boeing.

“We are now waiting on seven planes,’’ O’Leary said. “But we are lucky because most of the early deliveries were to replace our old planes, so it is relatively easy to extend our older planes.”

O’Leary said that if the strike went into November or December Ryanair’s passenger numbers for the final quarter of the year could be 25,000 fewer than predicted. “If the strike was to roll on for six months, into next March or April, then growth would be interrupted rather than it costing us money,” he said. “But there is no prospect of that.”

O’Leary said that Ryanair could not claim any compensation from Boeing because the terms of its delivery contract with the manufacturer indemnified Boeing against strike action.