Ryanair launches first base in Greece

Ryanair announced Wednesday the launch of its first Greek base with 26 new routes.

The base at Chania - the second largest city of Crete - will take off in April 2013 with one-based aircraft and will include routes to and from Billund, Bremen, Bristol, Eindhoven, Katowice, Marseille, Memmingen, Thessaloniki, Venice, Vilnius and Warsaw.

The low-cost airline is investing $70m at Chania Airport and the company plans to operate 106 weekly flights. Ryanair stated its 55th base would sustain 500 onsite jobs.

Ryanair's Kate Sherry said: "Visitors to Greece can now beat the recession and escape high fares and fuel surcharging by switching to Ryanair's lowest fares and our no fuel surcharge guarantee between Chania and 25 European destinations, including Edinburgh, London and Milan, amongst others. Ryanair's 500,000 passengers per annum will sustain up to 500 'on site' jobs in Chania, in a welcome boost to the Cretian economy, as we grow our passenger traffic by 100% at Chania."

To promote the new base, Ranair has released a 100,000 seat sale with fares starting from £8 for travel across its European network in January. The tickets are available until midnight Thursday.

The new Chania routes will begin in April and will go on sale on Thursday.

The news comes one day after the carrier unveiled the opening of his first base in Croatia at the Zadar Airport with 16 new routes in the UK and Europe.

Shares climbed 0.8% to €4.80 at 13:20 Wednesday.

RD