Ryanair has announced that they will open a brand new base in Copenhagen (CPH) for the Winter 2023 season. The base will be equipped with two aircraft and will be operational from December 2023.
As well as equipping with two aircraft, the new base will create up to 100 direct jobs for pilots, cabin crew and engineers in a $200million investment.
It must be noted that Ryanair is no way new to Copenhagen, with a strong presence already; making it the No.3 airline at the airport behind Norwegian and SAS.
The low-cost carrier currently operates 20 routes to the likes of London, Dublin, Milan and many more.
Giving SAS and Norwegian a run for their money
Whilst, its great to see Ryanair open this new base at Copenhagen, it is clear that the airline is here to disrupt SAS and Norwegian’s presence at the airport.
Ryanair made this clear in a recent release stating that the two aircraft base will provide unbeatable low fares for Danish citizens.
In addition, they will be able to offer affordable early morning departures/late evening arrivals, in comparison to the very high fares being charged by State subsidised high fare airlines SAS and Norwegian.
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Plenty of benefits to come with the base
As well as providing 100 new, direct jobs at Copenhagen, the new base will provide further benefits when it opens in December, which are: 4 new routes, adding to their existing 20. These new routes are Dusseldorf, Faro, Paris and Warsaw.
Ryanair will also increase the frequencies on its Gdansk and Krakow routes too, 2 of the most popular routes offered by the low-cost airline from CPH currently.
As previously mentioned, the airline will be able to offer early morning departures and late evening arrivals at an affordable price, something many travellers like.
Lastly, the airline will also be able to grow its annual passenger numbers from 2.3 million pax per year, up to 3 million pax per year.
Growing in Denmark as a whole
As part of the new base at Copenhagen, which now marks the second base for Ryanair in Denmark (Billund being the first), the airline has launched a flash sale.
The sale includes up to 50,000 seats being available for as little as 229DKK (£26) one way, for travel between the 1st Nov and 10th Dec 2023. Flights must be booked before the 24th Aug 2023.
Praising the launch of the new Copenhagen base, Michael O’Leary said, “As Europe’s No.1 airline, Ryanair is pleased to announce this 2 aircraft base for Copenhagen, which will compliment our 2 aircraft base in Billund”.
He added that this $200million investment by Ryanair is to help with the recovery of air travel in Copenhagen which “continues to lag behind its pre Covid volumes”.
“Ryanair believes this lack in recovery is due to the high airport fees and high air fares being charged by NAS and SAS,” said O’Leary.
O’Leary further added in his statement that the airline has called on the Danish regulator to lower CPH airport fees and enable all airlines to lower its air fares and as such boost the recovery in Copenhagen to above pre-Covid levels.
Lastly he added, “Danish citizens and visitors seeking the lowest air fares to Copenhagen have long used the Ryanair.com website”.
“Today’s announcement means that from December these low fares will now extend to early morning departures and late evening arrivals and will provide much needed choice and low fare competition to Denmark’s State aided, high fare airlines SAS and NAS”.
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