Cardiff Airport has marked a decade of continuous operations by Ryanair. The Dublin-based airline currently operates five routes out of the Welsh Government-owned airport with Fargo, Alicante, Malaga, Tenerife and Dublin.

It also provides additional flights each year during the Six Nations’ rugby tournament. Since launching its first route at the end of October, 2014, Ryanair has handled more than 685,000 passengers from and to the Rhoose-based airport.

The airport’s chief executive Spencer Birns, said: “The whole team at Cardiff Airport want to say a huge thank you and congratulations to Ryanair. It’s amazing to see so many of our passengers enjoying the advantages of using their flights at our airport.

” People living in Wales have great choice of popular destinations at low prices, thanks to Ryanair’s growth over the years. We’ve seen huge demand from our customers for more low-cost travel from their national airport. We look forward to working with the team at Ryanair to continue growing in Wales.”

Latest figures from the Civil Aviation Authority show that in the year to the end of August the airport handled 877,000 passengers, up 0.3% on the previous year. In August it handled 115,547 passengers up 4% on August, 2023.

While a challenge the airport is targeting reaching its pre-Covid level of 1.6 million passengers a year by 2026. A person flying out of Cardiff Airport say on a flight to Dublin and then returning to the airport is counted as two passengers, as is the case with all airports.