Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair is ready to spend more than $1 billion in order to offer flights from Milan's Malpensa airport and expand its services at Orio al Serio airport in nearby Bergamo, a company spokesman said on Thursday.
The operation would allow the budget airline to add 80 routes from the two airports and involve the acquisition of 18 new B737 aircraft by 2012, Peter Sherrard added.
The Irish carrier will formally present its offer on Friday when it meets in Dublin with representatives from SEA, the company which operates the Milan area airports.
Ryanair, Europe's most successful budget airline, expressed an interest in Malpensa earlier this month after Italy's national carrier Alitalia announced it was scaling back its flights at the Milan hub.
In exchange for moving into Malpensa and expanding in Bergamo, Sherrard said, Ryanair "wants SEA to provide greater efficiency and lower prices".
According to the Ryanair spokesman, Malpensa "has never achieved its full potential because it has always bet on the wrong horse: Alitalia".
Ryanair, he said, "can boost the number of passengers traveling through Malpensa from the current three million to over ten million".
"The Milan metropolitan area - which includes the provinces of Vercelli, Varese and Piacenza - has a population comparable to the seven million in London, where 18 million people travel through the airports," he observed.
Traffic will also increase at Malpensa, Sherrard added, "because it is a proven fact that where we fly, other airlines see their business increase".
One of the reasons why Ryanair is so successful, the spokesman said, "is because we do not court the big multinationals, which don't care about travel costs, but the multitude of small and medium-size enterprises which need to control costs when they send their representatives abroad to develop international relations and create new business".
Lombardy and Ireland are similar, he observed. "because we both have so many small and medium-sized enterprises which need cheap travel".
Ryanair's plan is to invest $840 million to buy 12 new aircraft to operate out of Malpensa, where it will offer 50 low-cost international flights and ten new domestic routes.
The Irish carrier has already allocated $280 million for six new planes to double its routes out of Orio al Serio to 40.
Alitalia's cutback at Malpensa is part of a new business plan drawn up to make the airline more attractive for sale.
The new plan, which includes cutting more than 150 flights out of Malpensa, became necessary after the Treasury failed to sell most if not all of its 49.9% stake in the national carrier through an auction.
The auction collapsed this summer when remaining bidders dropped out because of the conditions the Treasury imposed on potential bids.
Efforts are now under way to sell Alitalia through direct negotiations with interest parties.
Alitalia's move out of Malpensa, in order to focus on the airline's main hub in Rome, has become a difficult political issue which has cut across party lines to promote regional interests.
Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary, who has always been a sharp critic of Alitalia, said last month that he would not want the airline even if it were given to him because of all the political interference.
"Alitalia is a mess and the only way to save it is to free it from politics," he explained.
