NEW ROUTES AT CHARLEROI BASE

Ryanair Holdings PLC 11 December 2007 RYANAIR ANNOUNCES 5 NEW ROUTES AND A 5th AIRCRAFT AT ITS BRUSSELS CHARLEROI BASE Ryanair, Europe's largest low fares airline today (Tuesday, 11th December 2007) announced 5 new routes from Brussels Charleroi to Bergerac, Limoges, Perpignan, Porto and Zaragoza and a 5th Boeing 737-800 aircraft will be based in the Belgian capital from 5th March. Next summer (2008), Ryanair will operate 26 routes to / from Brussels Charleroi in 2008, carrying over 2.5m passengers who will sustain over 2,500 Belgian jobs in Wallonia. BSCA's partnership with Ryanair continues to be a huge success, transforming Brussels Charleroi airport from an empty, loss making white elephant into a profitable, thriving, wealth generator. Ryanair welcomes the opening of BSCA's new terminal in January 2008 which will deliver more low fare routes and more visitors for the Walloon region. The continuing benefits of Ryanair's growth at BSCA for the airport and the Walloon region highlights the absurdity of the Commission's flawed and untenable 2003 state aid ruling at Charleroi. Ryanair is confident that this unlawful ruling will be overturned on appeal by the European Court of First Instance. This appeal will be heard in Feb 2008. The European Commission continues to adopt a biased and discriminatory approach to State Aid cases by repeatedly ignoring Ryanair complaints about € billions of state aid provided to inefficient flag carriers while investigating spurious complaints by competitors, about free market deals at tiny regional airports which are perfectly lawful under the Commission's market investor principal. Ryanair looks forward the European Commission being forced by the ECI to address the following flagrant breaches of state aid rules which it has ignored for the past two years: •State aid of €1bn to Air France in the form of reduced domestic airport charges •State aid of €100m to Lufthansa through its sole use of loss making T2 at Munich •State aid of over €500m to the loss making Olympic Airways in Greece •State aid of over €20m to Alitalia's subsidiary, Volare, through airport debt write-offs •State aid of over €1.7bn to Alitalia through recapitalisation and debt write-off Announcing Ryanair's latest expansion in Brussels, CEO Michael O'Leary said: 'Ryanair's 5 new routes at Brussels Charleroi are great news for Belgian tourism, Belgian business and Belgian consumers who will enjoy even more of Europe's guaranteed lowest fares to 26 destinations next year. We are delighted that BSCA continues to grow and prosper with Ryanair and welcome the opening of their new terminal which will enable the development of even more low fare routes for Belgian passengers / visitors. 'The huge success of the BSCA's low cost agreement with Ryanair exposes the stupidity of the EU's unlawful decision at Charleroi. We look forward to the European Court of First Instance forcing the European Commission to end their discrimination by addressing the real and repeated breaches of state aid to flag carriers which they have ignored for the past two years. 'To celebrate these 5 new routes from Brussels Charleroi, we are releasing 100,000 seats for travel between January and March for just €10 including taxes on www.ryanair.com. We advise passengers to book immediately as this offer will end midnight Thursday'. To accommodate these 5 new routes, Ryanair will stop flying from Brussels to London Stansted from 5th March 2008. ENDS. Tuesday, 11th December 2007 For further information: Peter Sherrard Ryanair Pauline McAlester Murray Consultants Tel. +353-1-8121228 Tel. +353-1-4980300 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange UGWUPUPMGUG
UK 100

Latest directors dealings