Ryanair is launching a new route to Girona in Spain.

The new link will bring Ryanair's routes from Belfast to a dozen. The route to Girona will fly twice a week.

The low-cost airline announced its return to Belfast earlier this year. It now flies from Belfast International Airport to a range of locations, including London Gatwick, Malaga, Berlin and Milan.

Ryanair’s head of communications, Robin Kiely said:

“We are pleased to further extend our Belfast summer 2017 schedule, with a new route to Barcelona Girona, in addition to our 10 new summer routes and our four times daily service to London Gatwick, which will deliver 1.1m customers pa and support over 800 jobs at Belfast International Airport.

“To celebrate our new Belfast-Girona route, we are releasing seats for sale from just £24.99 for travel in March and April, which are available for booking until Thursday.”

Uel Hoey, Belfast International business development director, said:

“Barcelona Girona is further proof of Ryanair’s commitment to creating choice for Northern Ireland passengers and delivering pretty impressive growth from its new Belfast base. Once again, we will see more airline and airport-related jobs being created at no cost to the taxpayer.”

During a visit to Belfast last week, Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary said Stormont is "throwing good money after bad" by bailing out Northern Ireland's direct flight to New York.

The Executive is part-funding a £9m package to keep United Airlines' Belfast to Newark flight - Northern Ireland's only transatlantic route.

And Mr O'Leary also warned Ryanair is likely to eventually pull out of City of Derry airport entirely, taking out its remaining Liverpool and Glasgow routes.

Mr O'Leary said the scrapping of APD would be "huge" and could double the number of passengers flying in to Belfast through Ryanair.

Belfast Telegraph