The Irish budget airline yesterday announced it is to start daily flights to Liverpool, East Midlands and Glasgow in October and celebrated by offering 10,000 seats for sale at £10 including taxes.
Ryanair also promised a raft of new services from BCA to destinations across Europe in the next 12 months which are likely to include cities within its existing network on the Continent such as Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Madrid, Brussels and Pisa.
The operator said it expects to carry 270,000 passengers a year on the new domestic routes and their launch would lead to the creation of 270 jobs at the airport.
Ryanair's head of communi-cations Peter Sherrard said the airline looked forward to bringing "Europe's lowest fares" to the people of Belfast and to transforming travel from Northern Ireland.
"We expect these new routes to be just the start of Ryanair's prescence in Belfast and we look forward to opening further routes to continental Europe within the coming year," he said.
Mr Sherrard added it was "not inconceivable" that in three to four years the airline would be carrying half-a- million passengers on its European and domestic services from BCA.
He said the new routes would be a major boost to the economy,
particularly to the tourist sector.
"The new services will have a very positive effect on the local economy from the tourism and business point of view creating 270 local jobs and delivering a visitor spend in excess of £40 million and we expect over the next 12 months to develop further routes to
contiental Europe," Mr Sherrard said.
"We hope this will be a strong driving force in Northern Ireland tourism which is really having a honeymoon period with lots of new interest coming from continental Europe and from the UK."
Ryanair's only Northern Ireland destination is the City of Derry Airport but the expansion by the Dublin-based airline will provide competition on the three new domestic routes.
Budget rival easyJet already operates flights from Belfast International to Glasgow and Liverpool while bmibaby has an East Midlands route. Flybe also operates a service to Glasgow from Belfast City Airport.
Ryanair will be restricted to 140 passengers on incoming flights using its modern Boeing 737 jets because of a planning deal limiting growth at BCA.
It will also comply with a ban on late-night flying except where planes are delayed. BCA's operations are governed by a planning agreement with the Department of Environment with scheduled flights only permitted to take off and land between 6.30am and 9.30pm.
Ryanair said they had struck a very competitive deal to fly from Belfast and were able to make a profit with the existing circumstances.
Mr Sherrard said under the terms of the deal with BCA, Ryanair had not asked for an extension to the runway but he said it could prove to be an advantage.
"Our plans for Belfast City Airport do not forsee the extension of the runway – if BCA decide to extend the runaway that may be quite helpful to us,'' he said.
Brian Ambrose, BCA chief executive said Ryanair's arrival was great news for the "economy, for tourism and for the consumer''.
He said the airline could be fully accomodated within the airport's planning constraints and that BCA's master plan predicted that passenger numbers would rise from the present level of two million to four million by 2030.
"To do that, there will come a point where we will be looking to extend the terminal building, we will be looking at the runway and all of our infrastructure so if the business case is there and the timing is right we do plan to grow this place," Mr Ambrose said.
"To do any of that, there is a planning process we have to go through. But the plans annnounced by Ryanair are fully
accomodated within all of the
constraints which exist at the airport today.''
Meanwhile, Aer Lingus is reported to be poised to start flights from Belfast International to London Heathrow in the coming months.
It is understood there will be four daily each way flights and Belfast International is to become the
carrier's UK hub.
See Morning View, page 14