Low cost airline Ryanair yesterday announced that it is setting up an aircraft base in Malta, adding six new routes to the existing 13, as from May.

The new routes are from Malta to the cities of Billund in Denmark, Bologna in Italy, Krakow in Poland, Marseille in France and Seville and Valencia in Spain.

Ryanair’s commercial manager, Colin Casey said that Ryanair’s new Maltese base will deliver an estimated 800,000 passengers per annum which will sustain around 800 jobs.

120 weekly Ryanair flights take place to and from Malta, with Ryanair investing a total of $70 million at the Malta International Airport since first operating routes in 2006. Since starting operations, the airline has been responsible for bringing around 440,000 passengers to Malta. Yesterday’s announcement brings the total number of its bases to 41, with the airline operating 1,000 routes.

“Ryanair believes that Malta offers huge potential as an island, enjoying an all year round mild climate, endowed with a rich cultural heritage and employs a skilled and highly efficient work force. As a result, Malta features highly in our plans and we intend to further invest in the potentialities the island has to offer,” said Mr Casey.

Mr Casey explained that in spite of such turbulent times, Ryanair continues to remain a profitable company, carrying in total around 67 million passengers this year and as estimated 73 million passengers next year, across Europe.

The Malta Tourism Authority’s CEO, Josef Formosa Gauci, was also present for yesterday’s launch and was quick to dispel rumours that the new routes spell bad news for Air Malta.

“The introduction of low cost airlines has opened up new horizons for Malta. Since 99 per cent of visitors to our country come by air, the MTA has had to ensure that Malta provides adequate accessibility to other destinations which are not that popular. Our new five-year long agreement with Ryanair has found the full cooperation from the Malta International Airport (MIA), to the extent that the latter aided in the logistics consultations prior to the announcement that Ryanair will set up a base in Malta,” said Mr Formosa Gauci.

As is the norm with every announcement, Ryanair celebrated its new European base in Malta by releasing one million €9.99 seats for travel in late March and April (excluding Easter week), which are available for booking until midnight on Sunday, 7 March.