Ryanair inaugurates Malta base

Ryanair this morning inaugurated its base in Malta and promised to raise passenger traffic to Malta to 800,000, twice the current number.

The low-cost airline has based an aircraft in Malta and is introducing six new routes brining its network to Malta to 19 routes.

The new services will be to Billund in Denmark, Krakow in Poland, Marseille, Seville, Valencia and Bologna.

The first flight from Valencia landed this morning, and passengers were greeted with flowers and qaghaq ta l-ghasel.

According to the airline's calculations, the base should generate 800 jobs, pumping €200 million into the economy.

Luis Fernandez, commercial director, said 30 pilots and crew members would be based in Malta.

500,000 seats are being made available at prices starting from €5, across the European network to celebrate the opening of the Malta base.

Mr Fernandez said that the outlook for summer traffic were good.

Ryanair has 41 bases in various countries.

Source "The Times"