Ryanair has added Glasgow in Scotland and Rzeszow, the largest city in southeastern Poland, to its summer schedule for this year while increasing the frequency of some of its existing services. 

The company’s CEO Michael O’Leary told a press conference Tuesday that additional flights will be added to 18 existing routes from Malta including Barcelona, Milan, Stockholm and Zagreb, with the total number of routes brought up to 68.

Ryanair’s Malta-based fleet will grow to eight with the addition of a new B737 plane this year. 

O’Leary said the airline had seen its traffic grow and was expected to see further growth of 11% this year, representing over 4.9 million passengers, but was aiming for five million.

Ryanair, he noted, now accounts for more than half of all Malta’s aviation traffic, and double that of KM Malta Airlines. 

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary.

He said Ryanair plans to grow its operations in Malta, with new cabin crew positions opening up in March and the company expanding its Pieta offices - creating around another 50 to 60 jobs - and investing more in its air maintenance facility.

“This is not, unlike a lot of other airlines, some kind of ‘brass plate’ operation; this is a real airline and we’re investing in growing in Malta.”

O’Leary said the company’s investment in Malta equated to €800 million and supported over 4,200 local jobs, with 30 new pilot and cabin crew jobs opening up this year. 

“We want to keep Malta growing as the airline grows,” he said.

Taking the opportunity to criticise EU taxes on aviation, the Ryanair CEO said the sector was “having significant success” pushing back at such taxes, pointing to Hungary and Sweden as having removed them.

The company’s director of talent Mark Duffy said the cost difference between Ryanair and its “so-called competitors” was now around 60% - equivalent to €33 - and continuing to widen. 

To celebrate its new summer schedule, the company announced a sale of 100,000 tickets for €24.99.