Ryanair has announced a major investment at Liverpool John Lennon Airport, with a sixth aircraft to be based there for Winter 2026. The move represents a US$600 million (£453 million) investment in the Northwest and will bring more than 100,000 extra seats to Liverpool.
Six new routes and increased frequencies
The additional aircraft will support six new routes from Liverpool to Milan Bergamo, Copenhagen, Gdansk, Porto, Tirana and Warsaw. Ryanair will also increase the frequency of flights on three existing popular routes to Krakow, Kaunas and Cork.
Ryanair's Chief Marketing Officer, Dara Brady, spoke to the ECHO at the South Liverpool airport about the investment. He said: "We've been operating here since 1988, and we have a great relationship with the airport. They work incredibly hard to keep costs down despite the government's best efforts to drive up the costs by introducing double taxation on passengers."
Seat sale launched to celebrate
To celebrate the sixth aircraft and new routes at Liverpool in Winter 2026, the airline has launched a limited-time seat sale with fares from £29.99 available only at Ryanair.com.
Brady added: "The airport does a great job here in Liverpool, and the people of the North West, Liverpool, and the surrounding areas love low fares and can't get enough of them. We are happy to continue to support that and keep growing here."
Criticism of UK Air Passenger Duty
Brady also criticised UK Air Passenger Duty (APD), an excise duty levied on flights departing from UK airports based on destination distance and class of travel. He said: "While Ryanair is growing at Liverpool, other regional airports across the UK are being hamstrung by the decision to increase APD."
He continued: "If the UK Government is serious about delivering growth, they should abolish this penal and damaging APD tax, which makes the UK, particularly regional airports, uncompetitive compared to EU countries like Sweden, Hungary, Slovakia, and regional Italy, which are abolishing aviation taxes and lowering access costs to stimulate traffic, tourism, and jobs growth."
"The UK has gone the wrong way by raising APD to £15 per passenger, and now the Labour Govt proposes to 'double tax' visitors by allowing Regional Mayors to levy a tax on hotel overnights."
Ryanair has already submitted plans to the Labour Government to grow UK traffic by 27% to 80 million passengers by 2030, but the airline states this growth can only be delivered if the Government abolishes its "damaging and penal" APD tax, which it says is now the highest in Europe.
