After a long hiatus due to ongoing political tensions in many Middle East nations, European low-cost carriers are finally resuming flights to Jordan.
Europe’s largest low-cost airline, Ryanair, is set to resume all flights to the Middle Eastern Monarchy in late October, and a select few in mid-September, having placed flights on pause on June 13 of this year.
Ryanair isn’t the only European ultra-low-cost carrier to make a return, as Wizz Air recommenced flights to Jordan’s capital, Amman, from the Hungarian capital, Budapest. The first of these flights took off on Aug. 26 and is set to run twice-weekly for the foreseeable future.
Wizz Air says it also plans to recommence flights to most of the rest of its network, having previously operated flights from cities such as London, Rome, and Milan. Not only is it planning to reintroduce preexisting routes, but it also plans to expand the network, introducing four new twice-weekly connections to Aqaba, Jordan’s largest city on the Red Sea. These are to Warsaw and Katowice in Poland, Sofia in Bulgaria, and the Romanian Capital, Bucharest.
These routes all contribute to what the Jordanian minister for tourism, Emad Hijazin, branded as the country’s most low-cost connections in history. This is because, according to Hijazin, the 2025/26 winter season will see 18 low-cost connections to Europe from Jordan.
When asked by TravelExtra as to whether or not the low-cost giant would return to neighboring Israel, the airline’s CEO, Michael O’Leary, stated that it wasn’t currently an option. He blamed this on security and its impact on costs.
Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport has a low-cost terminal and a high-cost terminal. When there’s a nearby security threat, such as rocket launches in the area, all flights are forced to the high-cost terminal. This puts off O-Leary as it leads to delays and extra fees, which the airline can’t risk handling on a regular basis.
