Ryanair has set aside its previous concerns over “the Danish labor model” and announced it will open a two-aircraft base in Copenhagen in December of this year.
The low-cost airline claims the new base will create up to 100 jobs for pilots, cabin crew, and engineers. The carrier values its Copenhagen Airport (CPH) investment at $200 million.
Ryanair also has a two-aircraft base at Billund Airport, the second-largest airport in Denmark and the original airport created by LEGO.
Ryanair operates 20 routes to/from Copenhagen, carrying 2.3 million passengers annually. The base will allow the low-cost leader to offer early morning departures and late evening arrivals. It will also allow an extension of service to the airline’s winter schedule, offering 24 routes, including new flights to Dusseldorf, Faro, Paris, and Warsaw. Ryanair will also increase its flight frequencies to Gdansk and Krakow. The low-cost behemoth expects its contributed traffic in Copenhagen to grow to 3 million passengers annually.
Ryanair’s Big Everywhere, Even Where It Doesn’t Fly
“Ryanair is the only major EU airline that has significantly grown traffic post-Covid. In 2023/24, Ryanair expects to carry 184m passengers, rising 24% from its pre-Covid traffic of 149m.”
Ryanair
There is no doubt a benefit to Ryanair’s service, not only in affordability but in availability and reach. Addison Schonland, analyst at AirInsight, recently shared a graph on fleet utilization, which shows the airline’s magnitude compared to competitors in Europe and non-competitors in North America and elsewhere (excluding Asia and CIS.)
For Ryanair, The Danish Model Issue Is Resolved. Yes.
Beyond its current two aircraft base in Billundand, its recently announced base in Copenhagen, Ryanair also flies to two other Danish airports: Aalborg (in North Jutland) and Aarhus (in Middle Jutland). Ryanair confirmed that the 100 new jobs Ryanair intends to create will “hold to its agreed CLA with the Danske Metal Union in Denmark, which already covers Ryanair pay and conditions at its Billund base. Ryanair’s new Copenhagen base complies fully with Danish employment law, and these high-paid jobs will all pay their taxes in Denmark.”
Ryanair expects to operate from Copenhagen Airport’s low-cost “CPH GO” pier. Ryanair also called “on Copenhagen to lower its high airport charges.”
The airline claims that Copenhagen’s capacity in S23 is around 85% of its pre-Covid volumes, and Copenhagen’s high airport fees are delaying recovery.
Speaking in Copenhagen last week, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said:
“As Europe’s No. 1 airline, Ryanair is pleased to announce this 2 aircraft base in Copenhagen from Dec, which will compliment our 2 aircraft base in Billund. This represents a further $200m investment by Ryanair in the recovery of air traffic and tourism in Copenhagen, which continues to lag behind its pre-COVID volumes. Ryanair believes this is because of the high airport fees and the high fares being charged by NAS and SAS, which hampers the recovery of Danish traffic and tourism.
“Ryanair’s new Copenhagen base will build on our existing 20 routes, which we operate to/from Copenhagen on aircraft based outside Denmark. All 100 jobs for pilots, cabin crew and engineers will be recruited under the national CLA Ryanair has agreed with Danske Metal, Denmark’s largest national union, and Ryanair looks froward to continued growth and investment in Denmark as soon as the Danish Regulator makes a decision to lower airport fees at Copenhagen Airport. At a time when Copenhagen Airport lags behind the rest of Europe with its high fees and its failure to recover its pre-Covid traffic, Ryanair calls on the Danish Regulator to lower CPH airport fees to enable all airlines to pass on these lower fees in the form of lower air fares, and allow Copenhagen to recover its pre-Covid traffic and tourism.
“Danish citizens and visitors seeking the lowest airfares to Copenhagen have long used the Ryanair.com website. Today’s announcement means that from Dec, these low fares will now extend to early morning departures and late evening arrivals and will provide much-needed choice and low fare competition to Denmark’s State aided, high fare airlines SAS and NAS.”