Ryanair, Europe's largest low fares airline, yesterday announced a new route from Malta to Stockholm (Skavsta).
The new route will operate on Wednesdays and Sundays from October 31 when Ryanair said it will add two new Boeing 737 800s (total six) to its Stockholm Skavsta base.
Announcing the new route, Ryanair's sales and marketing manager for southern Europe, Bridget Dowling said:
"Ryanair's existing routes to Dublin, London and Pisa have proven hugely successful as have the recently announced routes to Bremen and Barcelona which will start in the autumn. We are delighted to announce a sixth route to Stockholm which will operate twice a week from October 31. We expect to carry 30,000 passengers on this route in the first year of operations.
"With this new route, Ryanair will carry more than 260,000 passengers annually to and from Malta. This generates a visitor spend of over €38 million in the area and delivers passenger savings of €26 million.
"Only Ryanair guarantees the lowest fares from Malta. If any passenger finds a lower fare with another airline on the same route, Ryanair will refund double the difference. To celebrate this new route to Stockholm, we are giving away seats from Malta for just €0.01 (one way and excluding taxes and charges) and we urge all passengers to log onto www.ryanair.com immediately, as seats this cheap will sell out fast."
The Stockholm (Skavsta) flight leaves Malta at 11.35 a.m. landing at its destination at 3.45 p.m. It departs Stockholm at 7.10 a.m. arriving here at 11.10 a.m.
The Malta Tourism Authority's chairman Sam Mifsud remarked: "This is more excellent news. It is amply clear that the serious flight capacity problem we were facing last year are now all but surmounted. New routes to Malta are opening on a regular basis, with the new airlines commencing operations all expressing satisfaction with the demand they are registering. Nevertheless, we still have hurdles to face in this regard, in that we need to ensure that the various airlines' load factors are strengthened as much as possible. That will be achieved by constant, ongoing marketing efforts in all our core markets and beyond".