The winter schedules have flipped, and Ryanair is marking the occasion with a burst of launches: more than 45 new nonstop routes rolling out over just three days, part of a wider 140-route expansion for Winter 2026/27 with roughly 80 million seats on sale across Europe and beyond.
The biggest winner is Poland. The country is now Europe's fastest-growing large aviation market this winter, with total capacity up more than 12%, and Ryanair is adding 13 direct routes between Poland and Italy alone. From Warsaw Chopin, travellers can now reach Catania six times a week, plus Bari and Venice three times weekly, with Bologna (3x weekly) and Turin following within days and Naples arriving in December. Gdańsk gains Milan Malpensa (4x weekly) and Catania, while Kraków, Katowice and Wrocław pick up services to Venice, Naples and Turin. The logic is simple: several Italian regions have scrapped their €6.50 municipal passenger tax, making them cheaper to fly to, while Germany and Belgium — where costs and aviation taxes are higher — are seeing Ryanair trim capacity and close bases.
Morocco is the other headline act. Eight new routes land this winter, linking Rabat with Stockholm and Kraków, Marrakesh with Wrocław and Karlsruhe, and Agadir with Milan, Nuremberg, Bratislava and Gdańsk. That takes the network to 13 Moroccan airports connected with 14 countries, served by 16 based aircraft — including two at the new Rabat base, Ryanair's fifth in the country. Capacity is up 580,000 seats, or 12%, and the airline is openly positioning Morocco as its main winter stronghold outside Europe. It entered the market back in 2006 with just Marrakesh, Fez and Oujda; the network now counts 156 routes, supported by a partnership with the Moroccan National Tourist Office and a government roadmap that aims to double annual visitor numbers ahead of Morocco co-hosting the 2030 FIFA World Cup.
The UK gets Ryanair's largest-ever winter schedule: 435 routes across eight airports, 22 of them brand new. Stansted remains the engine room with around 1,224 weekly departures and new links to Glasgow, Malmö and Parma; Luton gains Venice; Birmingham gets a ninth based aircraft as part of a $900 million investment, unlocking five new winter routes including Copenhagen, Rome Fiumicino, Marrakesh and Tirana; and Edinburgh grows capacity by 11% with new connections to Milan, Tirana and Warsaw.
For travellers, this is a genuinely good news cycle: more direct city-to-sun routes in the depths of winter, competition on Italy–Poland city pairs that previously meant connections, and easier access to Morocco's Atlantic and desert hubs from mid-sized European airports. If you're flexible on dates, fares on freshly launched routes often start low as the airline fills new planes — worth a search before the December services bed in.
