Ryanair will open a two-aircraft base at Rimini for the summer 2027 season, a move the airline values at US$200 million and links directly to the Emilia-Romagna regional government's decision to abolish the municipal tax on air passengers. The airline announced the base on Thursday, 15 October, at the TTG travel trade fair in Rimini.
With the two based aircraft, Ryanair says it will run its largest-ever Rimini schedule next summer: 17 routes, 114 weekly flights and more than 600,000 seats. Ryanair puts both the seat count and the weekly frequency at roughly double its 2025 level at the airport.
Five new routes from Rimini
Five of the 17 routes are new. Ryanair will add flights from Rimini to Dublin, Memmingen in southern Germany, Stockholm, Tirana and Warsaw. The other 12 routes on the summer 2027 list are services Ryanair already flies from the airport, and the airline says the two based aircraft will let it double its weekly flights there.
The airline says the base will support more than 500 local jobs, including pilot and cabin crew positions, and expects it to bring thousands of extra visitors to Emilia-Romagna each year. To mark the launch, Ryanair has opened a limited-time seat sale on the new routes, with fares starting at €29.99 on its app and website.
Ryanair has not said which version of its Boeing 737 fleet will be stationed at Rimini, and it has not published frequencies or start dates for each of the five new routes.
A tax cut that the airline wants copied nationwide
The Rimini base is the latest example of Ryanair tying growth in Italy to the regional abolition of the municipal surcharge, the local add-on to Italian passenger charges that the airline has campaigned against for years. Ryanair says Emilia-Romagna's decision has already let it add nine new routes across the region's airports, with about 250,000 new seats, more than 700,000 passengers a year and over 450 supported jobs.
The airline groups Emilia-Romagna with Abruzzo, Calabria, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Sicily as regions it calls pro-growth because of lower aviation taxes. It again called on the Italian government to scrap the municipal tax at every Italian airport. If that happens, Ryanair says it would invest a further US$4 billion in Italy, adding 40 aircraft, more than 20 million extra passengers a year, over 250 new routes and more than 15,000 jobs. In his comments, chief executive Eddie Wilson linked that offer to a target date of 2030.
"As Europe and Italy's No.1 airline, Ryanair is delighted to announce our new 2-aircraft Rimini base from Summer '27," Wilson said, describing it as a long-term commitment "to drive traffic, tourism and economic growth across Emilia Romagna following the region's abolition of the Municipal Tax." He added that the tax "continues to undermine Italy's competitiveness."
Emilia-Romagna President Michele de Pascale said the new routes show "the success of Emilia-Romagna's strategy to strengthen regional connectivity and tourism," adding that they will "reinforce Rimini's position as a key gateway to the Riviera and Emilia-Romagna."
Why Rimini matters
Rimini's Federico Fellini airport serves one of Italy's best-known beach coasts, a market that has traditionally been highly seasonal. A based fleet gives an airline more control over early-morning departures and allows it to schedule more rotations each day, which is why Ryanair presents a base as a step change rather than a simple route addition. The new links to Dublin, Stockholm and Warsaw also connect the Adriatic resort with three of Ryanair's large northern European markets, while Memmingen and Tirana extend its point-to-point network into Bavaria and Albania.
The announcement continues a busy autumn for Ryanair's summer 2027 planning. Earlier this month the airline put its first 29 new routes for next summer on sale, and it has used each new base or route package to press governments across Europe on passenger taxes and airport charges. For Rimini, the immediate result is a doubling of Ryanair seats in a single season, provided the airline's schedule goes ahead as announced.
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