Irish budget carrier, Ryanair is to introduce the southern French city of Toulouse to its route network from the 2016/2017 winter schedules when it launches flights to Balgnac International Airport from seven destinations across Europe and North Africa. The schedule of almost 40 weekly flights will deliver around 600,000 additional customers into the Toulouse market, Ryanair’s 32nd market in the country.

Ryanair will launch flights from the city from November 1, 2016 with a twice daily link to the Spanish capital, Madrid, a daily service to Brussels Charleroi and London Stansted, a four times weekly link to Berlin and twice weekly flights to Fez, Malta and Warsaw Modlin.

“The arrival of Ryanair at Toulouse Blagnac confirms the strategic orientations of our airport, which relies on the growth of low cost traffic,” said Jean-Michel Vernhes, President, Aéroport Toulouse Blagnac. Although Air France and its regional partners have dominated operations at the facility for a long time, easyJet is now has the largest network with up to 160 weekly flights to 23 destinations this summer, including new flights this year to Berlin, Dubrovnik, Milan and Pula.

“Ryanair is the heavyweight in the low-cost sector which hitherto lacked in Toulouse, and its presence will strengthen the supply of low-cost leisure destinations in Europe,” added Vernhes.

The budget carrier will bring new flights to Brussels Charleroi, London Stansted and Warsaw Modlin from Toulouse, will resurrect a former Air France and Air Malta service to Malta, but will compete directly with Air Arabia Maroc to Fez, Iberia to Madrid and easyJet to Berlin. It will indirectly compete with Brussels Airlines into the Belgian capital, Brussels and British Airways and easyJet into London.

Flight data from schedules provider, OAG shows that departure capacity from Toulouse returned to growth last year with total seats from the city increasing 3.2 per cent versus 2014 to a high of over 5.17 million seats. The arrival of Ryanair’s schedule of around 7,000 weekly seats will see it become the fourth largest operator by capacity, behind Air France, easyJet and the Air France regional brand Hop!

Elsewhere, Ryanair has this week released its expanded winter 2016/2017 offering from Dublin Airport, a network that includes two brand new cities and seven destinations not previously served by the carrier from Ireland’s largest air transport gateway during the winter season. In total it will offer flights on 68 routes from the Irish capital with over 670 weekly flights.

The new schedule reinforces the carrier’s strategy of connecting Dublin with Europe’s major centres of business through high frequency services. Complementing its multiple daily schedules to the likes of Amsterdam, Brussels, London (which will be boosted to 19 times daily with additional Gatwick flights), Madrid, Milan and Rome, Ryanair will launch a new five times weekly link to Hamburg, Germany and three times weekly service to Sofia, Bulgaria.

The next winter schedule will also see the continuation of summer flights to Athens, Bologna, Murcia, Porto and Seville – all of which will be flown on a twice weekly basis – while, the Romanian capital, Bucharest will see an expanded five times weekly schedule. This growth will boost the Ryanair operation at Dublin by around ten per cent and increase passenger traffic by more than one million annual passengers to around 12.3 million.

“Last year Ryanair single handily delivered 70% of the growth at Dublin Airport, following the Government’s decision to scrap the air travel tax, and we look forward to continuing to grow tourism, routes and jobs,” said Kenny Jacobs, Chief Marketing Officer, Ryanair.

The Irish budget carrier remains the largest operator at Dublin Airport and boosted its share of departure capacity back above the 40 per cent figure last year, according to schedule data from OAG. This is despite national carrier Aer Lingus growing its own short- and long-haul activities from the airport.