The low-cost airline Ryanair is going to open two new international air routes with Lanzarote for the summer. The head of the Irish airline in Spain, Portugal, France and Morocco, Elena Cabrera, has exclusively announced during an interview with La Voz that they will open 15% more seats during the summer season, which will be distributed between the new connections and those already established on the island, offering up to 1.5 million seats.
In total, Ryanair will offer 36 routes, with 120 frequencies in Lanzarote. The novelty is that there will be a direct connection between the island of volcanoes and the city of Dakhla, in the Western Sahara occupied by Morocco, as well as another with Milan Airport Malpensa. Until now, the company had two weekly flights between Lanzarote and the Italian city through Milan Bergamo Airport, which will remain as it is, but adding a new connection with Malpensa.
This announcement comes in the midst of controversy after the CEO of Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, unveiled the airline's advertising campaign for the summer in which he disguised the Spanish Minister of Consumer Affairs, Pablo Bustinduy, as a clown, insulting him by calling him a "crazy communist". This situation arose after the Ministry of Consumer Affairs fined Ryanair 107 million euros and four other airlines for "abusive practices" for, among other infractions, charging for hand luggage, having to pay for "adjacent seats to accompany dependent persons" or charging "a disproportionate amount" for printing the ticket at the terminal if it is not available.
In response to this campaign, the Minister of Consumer Affairs stated that he was not going to be intimidated and that his "obligation is to defend these rights and that is what I have done and will continue to do and no pressure campaign or insults will stop me from applying the rule".
Ryanair's head in Spain defends that this campaign is part of the company's "transparency" policy and assures that the company's practice, which controls 28% of air travel in Spain, is "totally legal" and that it continues to charge for hand luggage.
Elena Cabrera explains that "there is a lot of noise, but that companies are only obliged to allow a personal item that fits under the seat and, if you want more, you pay". In this sense, she adds that in airplanes "only 40 or 45% of the luggage fits in the overhead compartments", where there is room for "around 90 suitcases".
Ryanair Routes
The airline Ryanair maintains routes for the summer with different Spanish and European cities such as Alicante, Barcelona, Belfast, Birmingham, Bologna, Bournemouth, Bratislava, Bristol, Brussels, Budapest, Cologne, Cork, Dakhla, the East Midlands, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Knock, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Madrid, Malaga, Manchester, Marrakech, Marseille, Milan, Newcastle, Santiago, Seville, Shannon, Turin, Valencia and Zagreb.
