It replaces the airline’s service to London Gatwick which was withdrawn recently for the winter season because of Ryanair’s pilot rostering crisis.
A spokesman for Ryanair told Northern Ireland Travel News: “We are reinstating the London-Belfast route early and will operate from next March to London Stansted, providing direct access to Liverpool St and the City of London. This service has moved from London Gatwick where the availability of winter slots may be in doubt.”
The new Stansted route begins on March 1, 2018.
The Ryanair Belfast summer 2018 schedule includes 14 routes in total including a new twice-weekly route to Malta, and the new Stansted service. The airline’s Belfast schedule includes two Belfast-based aircraft, a $200m investment, the new twice weekly service to Malta and 14 routes in total including Lanzarote, twice weekly, Malaga, five times weekly, Milan, twice weekly and Tenerife, twice weekly.
Ryanair’s summer 2018 schedule includes inbound tourism routes from Milan, Berlin and London along with popular routes to sun destinations for family holidays.
“Ryanair will deliver lower fares and an even better customer experience as it rolls out year four of its ‘Always Getting Better’ customer experience programme, including a new Ryanair Rooms website, Ryanair concert tickets, Apple Pay integration, long haul Air Europa flights on sale on Ryanair.com and a new partnership with the Erasmus Student Network.
In Belfast, Ryanair’s David O’Brien said: “We are pleased to launch our Belfast summer 2018 schedule, with 14 routes in total including a new summer route to Malta and the return of our Belfast-London service, which will now operate to/from London Stansted Airport from 1st March.
“To celebrate the launch of our Belfast summer 2018 schedule we are releasing seats for sale from just £9.99, which are available for booking until midnight this Friday (10 Nov). Since these amazing low prices will be snapped up quickly, customers should log onto the Ryanair website right away to take advantage of these offers,” said the Ryanair executive.
The Ryanair decision means that easyJet will be the sole operator to Gatwick from the Province next summer while Ryanair will have no competitors on its new Stansted service.