The new Boeing 737-800s will bring the number of Ryanair aircraft in the Irish city to 22. The airline will start flying to Basel, Szczecin and Budapest in October, on a three-times weekly, two-times weekly and daily basis respectively. In November, Ryanair will launch daily services to Nice and Prague, as well as a three-times weekly service to Katowice.

Ryanair's expansion has been facilitated by increased capacity provided by the opening of Check-in Area 14 at Dublin Airport, as well as the opening of Pier D in October. Says Michael Cawley, Ryanair's deputy CEO: "By launching these six new routes, three of which (Budapest, Nice and Prague) are already served by Aer Lingus, and one of which (Basel) competes with Aer Lingus's high fare route to Zurich, long-term access between Dublin and these cities has been secured."

The airline will also significantly expand services on 12 of its existing routes from Dublin. Services to Edinburgh and Birmingham will increase from three-times to four-times a week, while an extra weekly flight to Manchester will bring this route to a five-times weekly service. Flights to Bournemouth will also increase from seven-times a week to nine.

Further afield, services to Bratislava, Kaunas, Krakow and Riga will soon be operating daily, while the airline also plans to add extra an extra weekly flight to its existing Gdansk, Rzeszow, Tenerife and Wroclaw services.

Says Cawley: "With these new routes and additional flights, Ryanair expects to carry a record ten million passengers through Dublin Airport in 2008".