Low-cost airline Ryanair today announced 50 new European routes from six UK airports.

The airline will offer new services, mainly to Italy, France and Spain, from Birmingham, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Stansted, Manchester and Newquay. It will also fly to three new airports in France and Romania.

Ryanair will fly to four new routes from Manchester Airport from April next year.  The new routes are Barcelona, Bremen in northern Germany, Marseille and Milan.

The Barcelona flights will touch down at Girona Airport, 62 miles (100km) north of the Spanish city, with buses transporting passengers to the city. The Manchester to Bremen route is designed to serve passengers visiting Hamburg and Hanover.

Sean Coyle, Ryanair's director of scheduled revenue, spoke today at Manchester Airport. He said: "Ryanair is, and will continue to be, the largest airline in the North West, delivering four million passengers through Blackpool, Leeds Bradford, Liverpool and Manchester in 2008."

Mr Coyle said the new Manchester routes - together with the airline's existing services between Manchester and Shannon and Dublin - will deliver 600,000 passengers to and from Manchester next year, sustaining 600 local jobs and generating a visitor spend of £50 million.

He said the number of Ryanair passengers using Manchester Airport has grown from 250,000 four years ago and is predicted to rise to around 1.2 million within five years.

Mr Coyle also said Ryanair would have 200 new Boeing aircraft within five years. Ryanair operates 605 routes to 26 countries