NEW sunshine and city breaks reaffirm an airline’s long-standing commitment to the North-East – but bosses have called on the Government to scrap an unpopular flight tax to help its progress.

Ryanair has launched new summer services to Portugal and Spain from Newcastle Airport.

The Irish carrier will start taking holidaymakers to Faro, Girona and Palma next summer.

It will also serve Polish cities Gdansk, Warsaw and Wroclaw, as well as Lanzarote and Tenerife, and has added more flights to Dublin, Alicante and Malaga in what officials say is its largest ever Newcastle summer schedule.

Robin Kiely, Ryanair’s head of communications, said the itinerary reflects the company’s allegiance to Newcastle, which was bolstered earlier this year by promises of winter trips to Lanzarote and Tenerife and a twice-a-day Dublin trip.

Mr Kiely told The Northern Echo the business is keen to explore further flights from the region.

However, Mr Kiely warned such visions would be more achievable if the Government gets rid of Air Passenger Duty (APD), which imposes a tax on carrying passengers from UK airports.

He said: “This is the start of something big and by the end of next year we will have delivered 750,000 passengers through the airport.

“There is a good team at Newcastle and it is a good airport.

“They have worked on the new departure lounge and are working on extending the car parking, which is great.

“I hope we will continue to grow here because we have 84 bases across Europe we can connect Newcastle to.

“The Polish flights offer something different; people can go for breaks over there and travellers can come this way to visit the Polish community here.

“But then we’ve also got the classic sunshine destinations too.”

Mr Kiely, who said Ryanair has adopted a business as usual approach amid the Brexit uncertainty, said it was also seeing more passengers choose Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal for trips away as they avoid areas such as Turkey over terrorism fears.

However, he said its progress would be further helped if new Prime Minister Theresa May and Chancellor Philip Hammond took action on APD.

Newcastle Airport previously called for government support over APD, claiming the site could be left “with one hand behind its back” if Scotland pushes ahead plans to halve the levy under devolved powers.

Bosses fear passengers could go north of the border in search of cheaper flights, undoing Newcastle’s hard work on attracting long-haul flights to New York and Dubai, as well as its budget-friendly routes.

Mr Kiely added: “APD would be the biggest inhibitor to growth at local airports.

“We hope the new Chancellor will see sense and scrap it.”