STOCKHOLM — Ryanair Holdings, Europe’s largest discount airline, is in talks with Finnish airports near the Russian border on flights to help the airline attract more Russian customers, the carrier said Tuesday.
The addition of airports in Finland will depend on Dublin-based Ryanair’s ability to reach agreements that will compensate for high airport fees, Erik Elmsaeter, Ryanair’s Nordic marketing chief, said in an interview in Stockholm.
Lappeenranta Airport, currently Ryanair’s only airport in southeastern Finland, already gets about 70 percent of its clients from Russia, Elmsaeter said. The Finnish-Russian border lies 230 kilometers from St. Petersburg, a city with almost 5 million inhabitants.
The airline said Tuesday that it would start flying from Norrkoeping in central Sweden to Alicante in Spain in May. Ryanair is in talks with “a number” of airports in Sweden and sees the Malmoe area in southern Sweden as an attractive area to grow in, he said.
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