Ryanair has announced its largest ever winter schedule for Sicily, with 88 routes, including 17 new ones, and more than 12.5mn passengers a year, up 9%. The airline says the programme supports more than 9,500 jobs on the island.
More aircraft, new routes
The schedule is built on 11 based aircraft, a $1.1bn investment. Two are new this winter, one in Catania and one in Palermo, and the Trapani-Marsala base is extended for the full winter season. That means five aircraft in Catania, five in Palermo and one in Trapani-Marsala.
The 17 new routes are:
- Catania: Alicante, Dublin, Gdansk, Memmingen, Porto, Rimini, Valencia, Warsaw and Wroclaw. Dublin and Wroclaw start from March 2027.
- Palermo: Dublin, Gdansk, Parma, Prague, Sofia and Tirana.
- Trapani-Marsala: Milan Malpensa and Verona.
To mark the launch, Ryanair has put fares on sale from EUR24.99 via its app.
The tax argument
Ryanair credits the growth to a regional policy change. The Sicilian government abolished the municipal tax at the island’s smaller airports from January 2026, and Ryanair says that has already brought a new base, record traffic and hundreds of jobs at Trapani-Marsala.
The airline wants the same at Sicily’s two biggest airports. If the abolition is extended across all Sicilian airports, Ryanair says it would add 3mn passengers a year, five more based aircraft, a $500mn investment and more than 2,400 jobs. Ryanair’s chief commercial officer, Jason McGuinness, said lower access costs have driven the growth at Trapani-Marsala.
Sicily’s infrastructure and mobility minister, Alessandro Aricò, said the island is becoming more central to Ryanair’s strategy and that the government is evaluating measures to extend the benefits across the island. He also pointed to the Flight Bonus scheme for residents. He stopped short of committing to abolish the tax at Palermo and Catania.
EU policy complaint
Ryanair also criticised EU aviation policy, saying Sicily is excluded from the ETS-funded sustainable aviation fuel support that Corsica, Malta and Cyprus receive. It warned that proposed changes to the emissions trading system risk raising costs for Sicilian passengers.
