Ryanair to invest $1bn in 44 new routes after Italy reverses tax hike

Ryanair has forecast 10% growth from Italian flights as it invests in 10 new planes to service 44 new routes into the country after a planned airport tax hike was cancelled.

The Irish airline said it was making the $1bn-pluis investment after Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi reversed the €2.50 municipal tax increase from 1 Sept 2016.

With the tax U-turn accompanying revised airport guidelines from the Italian government, which designed in part to enable the countty's regional airports to compete on a level playing field with those in Rome and Milan, Ryanair has agreed a deal with Pescara airport on the east coast that will reverse the previously announced closure of the base that had been looming in November.

Roughly three million more passengers will fly into and out of Italy per year on Ryanair's planes, it calculated, with 21 of the new routes including Rome and Milan and the rest into regional airports, such as Bergamo-Edinburgh and Bari - Liverpool .

Calculating that 35m customers will fly to and from Italian airports with Ryanair in 2017, which would lead to 2,250 jobs created by the company in the country, Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary praised Renzi and transport minister Graziano Delrio for the changes.

"All of this growth would have been lost to other EU countries if the Municipal Tax increase had not been reversed, and the airport guidelines had not been redrafted to comply with EU rules."