Ryanair will begin its first domestic routes in Germany and France in May.
Tickets for the flights ” from Frankfurt to Berlin, and Marseille to Paris ” go on sale tomorrow (20 March).
The airline says the routes will save French and German consumers ”over ”26m ($40m)” a year, adding that ”for too long” passengers have been forced ”to suffer high fares and fuel surcharges” of their domestic carriers.
Ryanair head of communications Peter Sherrard said: ”Around 200,000 German passengers will save ”20m a year and 60,000 French passengers will save ”6m a year compared to Lufthansa”s and Air France”s high fares.”
Italy and Spain are the only other continental countries where the carrier offers domestic flights - around ten in each.
A Ryanair spokesman told ABTN that the airline is constantly looking to expand and will welcome business travellers on the new routes - ”We think these will be profitable and provide a service for customers. We”d welcome corporate travellers ” they travel with us on other routes. These are cheaper flights, with a higher frequency.
”More of these domestic routes are always a possibility. At any one time Ryanair is looking at 50 new routes as potential.”
The two routes go on sale at 10:00 tomorrow, with the first 25,000 tickets available for ”10 - including taxes - until midnight on Monday.
” In February, Ryanair CEO Michael O”Leary predicted a possible 50% drop in profits this year due to high oil prices and airport charges ” and now easyJet has warned its net income may be lower than forecast.
”First half results will be in line with our expectations, however, it is pretty obvious that if the recent significant rise in the fuel price is maintained then our second half profits will be lower than we had expected,” said easyJet CEO Andy Harrison.
He said if current prices continued there would be an added ”45m fuel cost.
Good news came in the form however, that February load factors were up 1.8 percentage points compared with last year to 84.8%.