Ryanair to invest £130m in Luton

13 April 2012

BUDGET airline Ryanair today became the second carrier in as many days to expand operations at Luton airport.

The Irish airline is adding nine new routes and four new aircraft as part of a £130m investment - just a day after rival easyJet unveiled its own plans.

The move was announced as airport operator BAA issued a writ against Ryanair over non-payment of £1m landing fees at Stansted airport. Ryanair also issued proceedings against BAA relating to claims of over-charging on fuel levies.

The airline is adding new routes to Rome, Venice, Stockholm, Barcelona Girona, Barcelona Reus, Nimes and Dinard in France, Murcia in Spain and Esbjerg in Denmark.

The carrier, which started operating at Luton in 1986, already flies to Dublin and Milan from the airport. Although the new flights were available for booking today, Ryanair will not start operating the routes from next January.

It said the move would create more than 1,000 new jobs in the Luton area.

Easyjet said yesterday that it was planning to launch three new routes from Luton, which already offers 22 destinations, and is adding three aircraft.

Luton operator TBI welcomed the expansion by both airlines. However, it pointed out that the move would not have an impact on figures during its current financial year.

BAA today issued a writ against Ryanair after a row over non-payment of £1m landing fees at Stansted airport.

Ryanair had refused to pay the fees in protest at fuel charges, which it claims it is being unfairly forced to pay. The airline responded by issuing its own writ against BAA for alleged overcharging on fuel levies at Stansted.

The dispute centres around a levy introduced to recoup money from a £12.5m fuel hydrant system built in 1991. The airline is claiming that this money has already been recovered by BAA but that the fuel levy is still being imposed.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in