With the Swedish government moving to abolish its Air Passenger Tax, Ryanair is taking advantage – with aircraft moved to the country to support route growth.
Ryanair will add two extra Boeing 737 aircraft to its Sweden-based fleet for Summer 2025 – 1 in Arlanda & 1 in Gothenburg, in turn creating up to 60 new jobs locally, whilst adding 10 new routes for Swedish citizens/visitors. The following have been confirmed for launch:
From Stockholm Arlanda
- Cagliari, Italy
- Marseille, France
- Sarajevo, Bosnia
- Trieste, Italy
- Zakynthos, Greece
From Gothenburg
- Corfu, Greece,
- Dubrovnik, Croatia
- Milan-Malpensa, Italy
- Pula, Croatia
- Thessaloniki, Greece.
Lead-in fares start at 189 SEK one-way at Ryanair’s site and app.
However, it wouldn’t be a route launch without a Ryanair winge.
Whilst the Aviation tax will disappear, Swedavia (the main provider of airports in Sweden) is proposing a rise in airport charges for 2025, arguing that any airport charge increase by Swedavia would undo the positive effect of tax reductions and would undermine the Swedish Government efforts to reduce access costs and attract more airline investment and growth to Sweden.
In Quotes
Ryanair’s CEO Eddie Wilson said:
“As Europe’s No. 1 airline, Ryanair is thrilled to announce significant growth and expansion in Sweden, following the Swedish Govt’s forward-thinking decision to abolish the harmful Aviation Tax, which has been holding back Sweden’s post-Covid recovery and stifling traffic, jobs, and economic growth. Abolishing this tax will bring Sweden’s cost competitiveness more in line with its EU counterparts and allow Ryanair to deliver record growth and investment in Sweden.
In direct response to the removal of the Aviation Tax, Ryanair will rapidly increase capacity in Sweden by adding 2 extra based aircraft at our Arlanda and Gothenburg bases for Summer 2025 – a $200m investment that will create 60 direct local jobs – and by launching 10 new routes for Swedish citizens/visitors. This much-needed investment will be in addition to extraordinary growth in traffic to date, with Ryanair traffic in Sweden at 160% of pre-Covid levels. However, this extra growth and investment is contingent on Swedavia not increasing airport charges.
To celebrate this positive development for the future of aviation and connectivity in Sweden, Ryanair will now grow in Gothenburg by doubling the number of based aircraft to 2 in total, and will increase the aircraft based in Arlanda to 6 in total, an increase of 33% with a $200M investment, as well as 10 new routes to deliver 81 routes total to/from Sweden next Summer – an unprecedented level of growth thanks to the Government’s efforts to increase connectivity for Swedish citizens and inbound tourists. This reduction in tax will also act as a platform for further investment in aircraft, connectivity, tourism and jobs.”
Further growth
Ryanair has always pursued growth – and one of the key ways to drive that growth is through low costs, including access to countries and taxation purposes – which look harsh when stacked up against its fares.
With lower taxes and fees, it believes it can stimulate passengers to travel.
But you can bet that other airlines are looking at Sweden a little more closely and checking how viable routes are with this tax being removed.
It’ll be interesting to see if Ryanair can further increase capacity – or if other airlines take advantage too.
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