Ryanair launched its new schedule on Tuesday for flights from Belgium in 2024. Six new routes will be added from Charleroi. At Brussels Airport in Zaventem, however, growth will be zero.
The 2024 summer offer for the country's second-largest airport includes a total of 126 routes, six of which are new. In 2024, the Irish airline Ryanair will be offering flights to Amman (Jordan), Cork (Ireland), Dubrovnik (Croatia), Goteborg (Sweden), Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Tirana (Albania).
The airline's CEO Michael O'Leary announced the news on Thursday at a press conference in Brussels. He posed next to two cakes bearing the airline's colours and topped with "real Irish cream": a nod to him being pied in the face during his visit to the Belgian capital in September.
This expanded service will be provided by two new B737 aircraft at Charleroi, which the company said would create more than 60 new jobs for pilots, cabin crew and engineers. This brings the total Charleroi fleet to 18 aircraft.
At the start of last year, the airline announced five new routes to the following destinations: Asturias (Spain), Cluj-Napoca and Iași (Romania), Łódź (Poland) and Nantes (France). Here, the company has said traffic has grown by 8%.
At Zaventem, on the other hand, growth will be zero. "This is due to very high airport charges, which will rise again in April, making Zaventem even less competitive than rival airports throughout Europe," O'Leary explained.
Strike actions
While Ryanair continues to grow and invest in Belgium, Air Traffic Control (ATC) strikes remain the biggest threat to EU passengers' travel, O'Leary said. Ryanair was embroiled in a standoff with employees at its hub in Charleroi last year.
Workers accused the carrier of harvesting bumper profits while failing to reverse salary cuts implemented during the Covid-19 crisis. They also alleged that Ryanair has violated a previous agreement regulating pilot rest times.
On Tuesday, the company delivered its controversial passenger petition to the President of the European Commission calling on her to take action to protect overflights (and EU consumers) during national ATC strikes.
"In 2023, there were 67 days of ATC strikes (13 times more than in 2022) forcing airlines to cancel thousands of EU overflights from Germany, Spain, Italy, Ireland and the UK," O'Leary stated. "Despite these repeated strikes, there has been zero action from von der Leyen."
