Ryanair adds Turin as its new base in Italy

This will open up the city as a gateway for winter tourism

Turin Airport, located in the suburb of Casselle Torinese, will now become the 16^th new base of budget airline company Ryanair. In essence, this means that the northern Italian city will enjoy a vastly expanded offer of new travelling destinations in Europe and beyond, making it a prime destination for winter tourism on the continent.

Turin has already earned winter sports cred when it hosted the 2006 Winter Olympics

Turin’s airport was quite affected by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and the subsequent hit that alpine resorts experienced, given that their prime business period coincided with the worst peaks of infections in Europe.

Now, it seems that all of that misfortune might turn as 18 new routes were announced – 16 of these international, and two within Italy. The new destinations are: Budapest, Copenhagen, Krakow, Edinburgh, Kyiv, Lanzarote, London Luton, Madrid, Malaga, Marrakech, Paris Bva, Shannon, Seville, Tel Aviv, Trapani, Palma, Lviv and Pescara.

The last three of these are set to start serving passengers in July, while the rest will have to wait until November for the start of the winter tourist season.

Ryanair’s CEO Eddie Wilson was also in Turin for the announcement of the new base. His company has reportedly invested 200 million euros into the airport. This is expected to create 60 direct jobs for the local economy.

The city will now be directly connected by air links to 32 destinations in Europe, North Africa and the Near East giving both local residents and foreign tourists better options to discover new places for their holidays, leisure or business initiatives.

“Today I say thank you to all the people who have worked in recent years to make Turin a destination of excellence, also thanks to an unbelievable series of international events that will be held right here in the next 5 years,” wrote Chiara Appendino, the Mayor of Turin, on her Facebook page - being one of the first to announce the news.