Ryanair, the Irish discount airline, today added the Swedish capital, Stockholm, to its European network as it pursues an aggressive expansion strategy.
Stockholm Skavsta airport will be Ryanair's ninth European base, and represents its first serious foray into the Scandinavian market. The airline hopes that it will carry more than 1.5 million passengers through Stockholm in the first year of its Swedish operation.
"Thanks to Ryanair and Stockholm Skavsta Airport, the SAS high-fares monopoly in the Scandinavian market is at an end," said Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive officer.
One-way fares from Stockholm to London will start at around £28.50, while Glasgow-Stockholm one-way tickets will start from around £42.75 as Ryanair pits its new operation against SAS, the Scandinavian airline. The new venture will lead to the creation of more than 200 jobs in Stockholm.
Ryanair will operate more than 30 flights a day out of Skavsta airport, which is about 60 miles south of Stockholm. The destinations will be Glasgow, Hamburg, Paris, Oslo, Aarhus, in Denmark, and Tampere, in Finland, as well as the services that the airline already operates to Stansted and Frankfurt.
Ryanair is to base up to four Boeing 737-800 planes at Skavsta, which is owned by British airport operator TBI, from April 4.
Ryanair is expanding rapidly in Europe, winning customers by offering fares well below those of traditional full-service airlines, such as British Airways, and giving away some seats and flying to less expensive, albeit sometimes remote, airports.
The move into Scandinavia follows the setting up of Ryanair's first base in Germany at Hahn, west of Frankfurt, last February, and the opening of an operation at Brussels-Charleroi in April 2001.
Ryanair said it was confident European Union authorities would find that it had not received unfair state aid to help the set up its Belgian hub. The European commission launched an investigation last month into aid the airline allegedly received from state-owned Brussels-Charleroi airport.
