Ryanair to Add 500 Flights from Stansted Airport

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DALLAS - Bucking the current industry trend of reducing flight schedules due to staffing shortages, Ryanair (FR) today announced that it is adding 500 flights from London Stansted (STN) during the October mid-term school holidays.

The airline said that these flights will give it an additional 10,000 seats to destinations including Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece.

Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary has described the situation at London Heathrow Airport (LHR) as being "hopeless" and says that both his airline and STN have the capacity and employees to handle the increase. On Monday, LHR announced that its daily limit of 100,000 departing passengers was due to a shortage of ground-handling firms.

The LHR pax limit will remain in place through October 29.

Ryanair is the launch customer of the Boeing 737 MAX 200. Photo: Brandon Farris/Airways

Further Comments from Ryanair CEO

"While hopeless Heathrow continues to cut flights and raise fares for families, Ryanair and London Stansted continue to add flights, and offer thousands of low-fare seats for the autumn mid-term break," O'Leary said.

Heathrow chief commercial officer Ross Baker said, "Our primary concern is ensuring we give our passengers a reliable service when they travel. That's why we introduced temporary capacity limits in July, which have already improved journeys during the summer getaway."

The CCO added, "We want to remove the cap as soon as possible, but we can only do so when we are confident that everyone operating at the airport has the resources to deliver the service our passengers deserve."

Featured image: Ryanair Boeing 737-800. Photo: Julian Schöpfer/Airways