Why Duddy do that? John calls it a day

Budget airline guru Michael O’Leary is looking for the right fleet of planes in order to secure low fare flights to the US.

Ryanair’s chief said that there are ‘huge opportunities’ for no frills transatlantic flights from Ireland to the US. The revelation came yesterday after a press conference, which announced the expansion of the company into Manchester Airport.

O’Leary said that he is ready to splash out on between 40 to 50 new aircraft for the transatlantic flights but he has yet to find a suitable fleet. This comes only weeks after it was reported the airline was in talks with the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) over designing a new aircraft with them.

Flights to the US from Ireland seem not to have been affected too harshly by the recession. Aer Lingus’ air traffic to and from the States has grown by a quarter in the past year.

26 new routes will fly out of Manchester after the company pulled out of it two years ago. One of the 26 routes included in the Manchester schedule is Dublin, allowing football fans get to the city for much less than other airlines.

At the Manchester conference, O’Leary stated that the company won’t be heading as far as the lucrative Middle East saying, ‘They don’t want low fares down there’.