New Ryanair routes to bring 39,000 more tourists to Kingdom — JTB

AMMAN — The Jordan Tourism Board (JTB) and the Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair on Monday signed an agreement to add six additional routes to the Kingdom, contributing to a total of 22 routes that now link Jordan with 14 European countries. 

Tourism Minister and JTB Chairman Nayef Fayez, during a press conference, said that this increase will serve more than 300,000 passengers arriving and departing from Queen Alia International Airport in Amman and King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

Fayez also noted that the Kingdom is witnessing a positive trend in tourism activity, expressing appreciation for Ryanair for increasing its routes to Jordan.

The minister noted that low-cost flights helped Jordan gain momentum before the pandemic, which enabled the Kingdom to realise "a big leap" in increasing the number of tourists in Jordan. 

JTB Managing Director Abdul Razzaq Arabiyat said that signing the agreement will contribute to increasing the number of tourists and distributing development gains to all governorates.

Arabiyat also said that the six new routes will increase the number of tourists in the Kingdom by an average of 39,000, which will contribute to achieving the tourism sector’s envisioned returns.

The new routes will connect Amman with Madrid, Paris, Rome and Vienna, as well as connect Aqaba with Vienna. 

Ray Kelliher, director of Route Development at Ryanair, expressed happiness for the company's expansion in the Kingdom as a direct result of cooperation with the JTB through 2021 winter routes.

Kelliher said that the company will start selling seats in celebration of the winter trips to Jordan at prices starting at only JD17 (19.99 euros) for travel until the end of next March, whose bookings are made before midnight of next Wednesday.