Ryanair is to connect London with Cornwall, Belfast and Edinburgh through new daily flights following a cut to air passenger duty (APD).
The budget airline has announced plans to strengthen the links between London Stansted with the Northern Irish and Scottish capitals, as well as Newquay, this summer.
The London to Edinburgh service will run three times a day, London to Belfast twice daily, and London to Cornwall three times a week.
While flying is much more damaging to the environment than going via train, the extra routes will ease travel between London and the three areas.
The Stansted to Newquay flight takes an hour and 15 minutes, compared to more than five hours via road and rail.
Ryanair currently flies all three of these routes, but much less regularly than is planned.
The airline is also increasing the number of flights it operates from Stansted to Asturias in Spain, Leipzig in Germany and Klagenfurt in Austria.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, CEO Michael O'Leary praised the government's decision to cut tax on domestic flights - a move that has been criticised by environmental campaigners for encouraging unnecessary, short-haul flights.
"While the halving of APD on domestic flights from April 23 has allowed Ryanair to add more domestic routes to our UK schedule for summer 2023 - including London Stansted to Belfast, Cornwall and Edinburgh - if we are to continue to grow and drive traffic/tourism recovery for the UK, Prime Minister Sunak should immediately scrap APD for all travel and provide incentives for airlines like Ryanair to stimulate growth and recovery for the UK, including London," he said.
He added: "Cut APD and you will see significant growth."
When asked whether he was concerned about the environmental impact of adding more domestic routes, O'Leary said: "No. I don't feel any concern about the environment because all these flights are taking place on very environmentally friendly aircraft.
"You can now travel to Newquay in Cornwall with much less environmental impact and damage to your pocket."
In the financial year 2021/2022 APD brought in £1billion in tax receipts.
O'Leary warned that prices would likely rise this year, in part due to high oil prices.
"At the moment we're looking at fares rising high single digits this year," he said.
"I don't think we will see the return of £9.99 airfares for the next year or two."
Ryanair is currently running a sale until midnight on January 19 for flights running from April 2023 to October, with fares costing from £29.99.
Despite this being significantly more than previous sale prices, Ryanair has recently had a record period of bookings - selling two million seats across a weekend for the first time.
At the end of August last year O'Leary announced plans for a number of new routes from the UK from the winter of 2022/23.
The announced routes were:
- London Stansted to Asturias, Catania, Klagenfurt, Lapland and Leipzig
- Birmingham to Billund, Grenoble, Santander, Stockholm, Toulouse and Venice
- Bournemouth to Lanzarote and Venice
- Edinburgh to Grenoble and Venice
- Manchester to Klagenfurt, Podgorica and Turin
- Newcastle to Barcelona and Cork
- Liverpool to Rome
