Ryanair’s Milan pledge has been made before

Ryanair has announced its biggest-ever Winter schedule for Milan: two additional Bergamo-based aircraft ($200 million), bringing the city fleet to 33 aircraft and cumulative investment to $3.3 billion. 8.7 million winter seats, up 11%; and ten new routes, including Liverpool, Edinburgh, Gdańsk and Tirana. Fares start at €29.99. CEO Eddie Wilson called it the airline’s “biggest-ever Winter schedule for Milan.”

More closely, the same release adds an interesting claim: Ryanair says it would add 40 aircraft, 20 million passengers, 250 routes and 15,000 jobs across Italy if the country scrapped its municipal tax on air travel. But those figures aren’t new. Ryanair made the same pledge (40 aircraft, 20 million passengers, 250 routes, 15,000 jobs) in February, when it announced record growth for Forlì, Parma and Rimini after Emilia-Romagna abolished the same tax regionally. In May, a smaller, region-specific version of the same approach played out in Sardinia, where Ryanair tied expansion to the tax’s removal. The regional government refused and publicly accused the airline of blackmail. Five Italian regions have since dropped the levy.

The Milan release does not introduce a new commitment but reattaches a standing national offer. It is a practised piece of financial communication: a real, verifiable investment (named aircraft, named routes, a fare you can book today) paired with a standing negotiating position Ryanair has now repeated, word for word, in at least two regional disputes eight months apart.
What’s worth following is how this settles: whether the pledge keeps working as a genuine negotiating tactic, repeated until a government responds, or whether, over time, it simply becomes part of Ryanair’s brand voice.