Post by Tomas Chlumecky (aka Aviation Doctor)

Ryanair is the largest airline serving Europe. According to Cirium Diio data, the pan-continental carrier will operate nearly one in every six flights within Europe through the rest of 2026. It is now the world's fifth-largest airline, and number one outside North America. It will serve 224 airports between June and December. The top five, by the number of flights, are London Stansted, Dublin, Milan Bergamo, Brussels Charleroi, and Barcelona. Funnily enough, none of Ryanair's 15 routes that will launch on June 1 and 2 will involve any of them. The additions are bound to make the weekly celebratory new routes article (see the most recent edition). 7 Routes Begin On June 1 Credit: Shutterstock ✕ Remove Ads This article was researched and written on Monday, June 1, which is the meteorological start of the summer. On this day, Ryanair will begin seven routes. They are Bologna to Castellón (twice-weekly 737-800), Cologne to Rimini (thrice-weekly 737-800), Manchester to Castellón (twice-weekly 737-800), Tirana International Airport Mother Teresa (TIA) to Alghero (twice-weekly 737-800), TIA to Eindhoven (thrice-weekly 737-800), TIA to Parma (twice-weekly 737-800), and TIA to Wrocław (thrice-weekly 737-800). Two of the seven links are brand-new; no airline has served them before. They're both to Castellón, whose airport was built in 2011 but which didn't have any scheduled services until 2015. It was nicknamed Spain's ghost airport. Nonetheless, it has slowly developed. Cirium indicates that 2026 will be its best year for scheduled activity, with Ryanair, Volotea, and Wizz Air primarily flying there. ✕ Remove Ads Wizz Air already serves two of the TIA markets introduced by Ryanair (Eindhoven and Wrocław), while the ultra-low-cost carrier will join Ryanair to Alghero later this month. Until June 1, Alghero, which is the third-busiest commercial airport on the Italian island of Sardinia, did not have any flights to Albania. Now it'll have two carriers. Which airline will blink first? Elsewhere, Cologne-Rimini regains flights after a 15-year absence, when the now-defunct airberlin last operated, while TIA-Parma returns after 13 years, when the now-defunct Belle Air served the city in Emilia-Romagna. Five of the eight routes will compete directly with Wizz Air, including between TIA and KTW. As Smartwings is also present in that market, the airport pair, which covers 544 nautical miles (1,007 km) each way, will have a trio of airlines for the first time. Booking data for April 2025 to March 2026 shows that just under 300,000 people flew between TIA and Poland, with KTW-TIA being the fourth-largest market. It'll now have eight-weekly services