Following the 50% cut in Air Passenger Duty Tax (APD), Ryanair has announced nine new domestic UK routes, which will take place in the Summer of 2023.
The nine new routes are as follows:
- Belfast-Cardiff
- Belfast-Edinburgh
- Belfast-East Midlands
- Belfast-Manchester
- Belfast-London Stansted
- Bournemouth-Edinburgh
- Edinburgh-Newquay
- Edinburgh-London Stansted
- Newquay-London Stansted
Ryanair Welcomes The APD Cut…
Jade Kirwan, the Head of Communications for Ryanair, welcomed the APD cut and said the following on this:
“Ryanair is pleased to announce 9 new domestic UK routes in direct response to the UK Govt’s 50% reduction in UK APD from tomorrow, 1 Apr.”
“Reducing APD will result in market growth in the UK, and these new routes show just that, with 74 weekly flights scheduled across Belfast, Bournemouth, Cardiff, and Edinburgh. East Midlands, London, Manchester, and Newquay represent 95% growth on our UK domestic schedule compared to last Summer.”
“While the halving of APD on domestic flights from Apr ‘23 has allowed Ryanair to add more domestic routes to our UK schedule for Summer ’23 if we are to continue to grow and drive traffic/tourism recovery for the UK, the UK Govt should immediately scrap APD for all travel and provide incentives for airlines like Ryanair to stimulate growth and recovery for the entire UK market.”
Ryanair’s Movement Statistics Continue to Grow…
Ahead of the Summer 2023 season, Ryanair is experiencing significant growth in the number of flights handled on a seven-day rolling average, as noted by RadarBox.
For March 26-April 2, the carrier operated 2,865 flights, which represents an increase of 4.71% compared to the same period last year.
This figure is also 534 movements higher than the same period in 2019, which is known as the pre-COVID era.
Below is the last six weeks’ worth of data for the carrier:
| Date | 2019 Numbers | 2022 Numbers | 2023 Numbers | Percentage Difference (2023 vs. 2022) |
| February 12-19 | 1844 movements | 2013 movements | 2144 movements | +6.51% |
| February 19-26 | 1849 movements | 1978 movements | 2149 movements | +8.65% |
| February 26-March 5 | 1845 movements | 2157 movements | 2149 movements | -0.37% |
| March 5-12 | 1850 movements | 2189 movements | 2131 movements | -2.65% |
| March 12-19 | 1832 movements | 2178 movements | 2139 movements | -1.79% |
| March 19-26 | 1840 movements | 2171 movements | 2222 movements | +2.35% |
What we can see from the data is that Ryanair is continuing to perform well, and for March 19-26, you can begin to see the Summer 2023 spike initiating.
Overall…
It is abundantly clear that Ryanair is going to have quite a busy Summer 2023 period, especially with the high load factors it was already advertising in the Winter season, being the high 90s.
All eyes will be on the carrier to see if it can exert more pressure on the UK Government to cut APD in its entirety, which would open up more consumer spending for travel moving forward.
But for now, all eyes are on Ryanair to see if any more UK routes get announced as a result of the APD cut, which will no doubt put pressure on regional carriers such as Loganair.
