Ryanair confirms new flight to European city dubbed ‘the perfect holiday’

Holidaymakers can now fly from a major UK airport to a European city often described as the perfect weekend getaway. Ryanair has launched direct flights from Edinburgh to Porto, Portugal’s edgy but enchanting second city, four times a week. Porto, widely regarded as one of Europe’s most underrated and beautiful cities, is famous for port wine, waterside restaurants and a UNESCO-listed historic centre.

It has all the ingredients for a memorable city break: exceptional local cuisine (particularly seafood), spectacular scenery and some of the world’s best bookshops, including the otherworldly Livraria Lello. Beyond the city, Porto is the gateway to the Douro Valley, a wine region renowned for world-class vineyards.

The flights from Edinburgh are part of 72 new routes Ryanair will operate in Europe this summer. Elena Cabrera, the low-cost Irish airline’s Head of Comms for Portugal, said Ryanair remains committed to serving Portugal despite a lack of passenger growth to the capital, Lisbon.

New routes have also been confirmed between Porto and Rome Fiumicino, Barcelona, Brussels, Dublin and Frankfurt. It’s worth noting that in September, Metro warned readers about a new tax that would soon make travelling to Porto more expensive. Since December 1, the city hiked tourist tax by 50% in an effort to crack down on overtourism. The fee was raised from €2 (£1.69) to €3 (£2.53) per night for visitors aged 13 and over.

The additional fees will be spent in areas like culture, heritage, the environment, energy, quality of life, town planning, housing and transport. Rui Moreira, Porto’s mayor, claimed the previous levy wasn’t enough, and that extra money is ‘essential for providing a service to tourism’ in the city going forward.

The new link from Scotland to Porto comes amid a shake-up in Ryanair’s flight schedule, which has seen dramatic cuts to holiday hotspots in Spain. Fed up with rising aviation taxes in Europe, Michael O’Leary’s low-cost Irish airline is pulling routes to popular holiday destinations in a bid to reduce the surcharges it pays for operating at airports.

Ryanair will run fewer flights and scrap routes altogether to certain destinations, with some already underway. Italy, Denmark, and France are set to be impacted, but Spain is facing the biggest blow. The airline has never minced its words about rising taxes across Europe.

In a ‘resolutions’ manifesto released on New Year’s Day, Ryanair called on governments to axe aviation taxes, reduce air traffic control (ATC) fees and scrap traffic caps. It said these taxes should ‘be provided by governments and not paid for by airlines and passengers’.

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