Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary has called on the UK government to be "radical" and approve the construction of new runways at London's Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted airports.
In a statement released today, O'Leary says that adding runways at all three locations would "finally resolve the runway capacity issue for the next 50 years, while ensuring [that] competition between airports delivers efficient facilities and prevents airlines and passengers being ripped off by gold-plated monopoly runways".
The UK government has yet to make a decision on where airport capacity can be added to serve the capital. The Airports Commission recommended that a new runway be built at Heathrow, rather than Gatwick, in its final report of July 2015.
Ryanair meanwhile intends to add new routes from London Stansted to Strasbourg and from London Luton to Faro next summer.
The budget carrier will operate a twice weekly services to Strasbourg and five weekly flights to Faro.
FlightGlobal schedules data shows that there are currently no direct links between Strasbourg and the UK, but Ryanair will compete with EasyJet and Monarch Airlines on services to Faro from Luton, while British Airways and Norwegian offer competing services to the Portuguese destination from other London airports.
Ryanair will axe its service from Gatwick to Seville this winter, and is moving its Kaunas flights to Stansted. It will also end services from Luton to Bratislava.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
