Launching six new routes for Portugal, the flamboyant boss of low-cost airline Ryanair has told journalists that his company is on track to topple TAP as the biggest airline company in Portugal.
“We’re the second biggest in Lisbon and we’re already leading in Porto and Faro”, said Michael O’Leary, although the latter claim is debatable as Easyjet is also very much in evidence in the Algarve.
Nonetheless, O’Leary affirmed that over the next three or four years, “working together with ANA” (the airports authority) “we will be able to become the number one airline in Portugal”.
The latest Ryanair flights – to become operational in the winter – bring the number of routes in and out of Portugal to 42.
Four new routes will operate out of Lisbon – connecting the capital with Bremen, Eindhoven, Milan and Rome – and two out of Porto (Bremen and Brussels).
Meantime, hopes that Ryanair might resurrect the ill-fated Lisbon-Faro link have fallen flat. Operating for all of three days before the announcement that it was being pulled, the route is simply not viable, according to O’Leary, as “people prefer to use the motorway”.
