Ryanair has made its long-awaited debut at Paris Orly Airport (ORY), securing 840 slots for the summer 2025 season. This move expands the Irish carrier’s presence in the French capital, allowing Ryanair to operate daily flights to Bratislava, Slovakia, and Milan Bergamo, Italy.
The slots were allocated by French airport coordinator Cohor as part of a pool of 8,112 available slots at ORY, with 50% of them set aside for new entrants, as mandated by European Union regulations.
Previously, Ryanair’s operations in Paris were primarily based at Paris Beauvais-Tille Airport (BVA), where it accounted for 82% of the airport’s scheduled capacity in December 2024, according to OAG Schedules Analyser data. The airline also runs some services from Paris Chalons-Vatry Airport (XCR). BVA, located 56 miles from central Paris, and XCR, at 100 miles away, are far from the city center, whereas ORY is just 11 miles south, offering a much closer connection to the heart of Paris.
However, despite securing slots for flights to Bratislava and Milan Bergamo, Ryanair’s bid for 12 additional routes was unsuccessful. The airline had also applied to fly to destinations such as Cologne Bonn (Germany), Dublin (Ireland), Gdańsk (Poland), Girona (Spain), Kaunas (Lithuania), Reggio Calabria (Italy), and Wroclaw (Poland), but these routes were not approved, according to Cohor’s data.
This slot allocation comes amid Ryanair’s warning that it may cut capacity on French regional routes by up to 50% starting January 2025, should the French government proceed with a proposal to raise passenger taxes. The French Parliament is currently debating the plan, which aims to increase aviation taxes by €1 billion ($1.06 billion) as part of the 2025 national budget.
Ryanair currently operates 22 airports across France, with its largest base at BVA, followed by Marseille, Toulouse, Nantes, and Nimes. It also serves as the exclusive operator for scheduled flights from smaller French cities, including Beziers, Carcassonne, Dole, Nimes, Poitiers Biard, and Tours Val de Loire. Ryanair has yet to comment on the ORY slot allocation process.
