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Ryanair is increasing its presence at Edinburgh Airport by introducing three new flights. From May 2010, passengers will now be able to choose to travel to Faro in Portugal, Marrakesh in Morocco and Paris when they jet away on holiday from the Scottish transport hub.

Ryanair currently operates 35 routes from Edinburgh Airport, so the addition of the three new routes will send its total number up to 38. This is some increase on the situation only a few years ago: back in 2007 it was only operating two routes from the airport.

As well as the extra three routes, Ryanair is also going to introduce extra flights on 11 more of its existing routes. As a result of the extra flights and the extra routes, Ryanair’s traffic at the airport is soon expected to reach the 2.5 million-per-year mark. This means that Ryanair will be carrying a quarter of the total number of passengers passing through the airport.

The new route to Marrakesh is especially important for both Ryanair and Edinburgh Airport because it is the first direct flight to the Moroccan city to operate out of Scotland. Now travellers could find themselves going from the heart of Scotland to the Sahara desert in a matter of hours.

Morocco is sure to prove a popular destination because it is not much further to travel than Spain but provides travellers with a taste of Africa that is quite different from anything found in Europe.

The managing director of Edinburgh Airport, Gordon Dewar, said that they were “delighted” Ryanair had chosen them for the expansion, adding that the new routes and increased flight frequency make Edinburgh “better connected than ever before."

Irish airline, Ryanair, has added three new routes to its Edinburgh schedules – Marrakech, in Morocco, Faro in Portugal, and Paris, France. The airline now operates 38 routes out of Edinburgh.

Last year, Ryanair axed flights at a number of UK airports, including Robin Hood and Birmingham, and moved its planes to Edinburgh, where fourteen new flights helped elevate the airport above its closest rival, Glasgow.

Edinburgh posted an impressive 5.6% rise in passenger numbers in September 2009, and a further 0.6% boost at the end of the year, despite being battered by appalling weather.

Ryanair boss, Stephen McNamara, issued a template statement, and then extended the airline’s never-ending sale for another week. Edinburgh boss, Gordon Dewar, was delighted with the news, however:

“We have managed to replace the seats lost by the collapse of Flyglobespan late last year. The Marrakech route is particularly exciting as it’s the first link from Scotland to this burgeoning tourist destination.”

The new routes completed a bumper week for Edinburgh, coming just days after an English developer announced plans to build two hotels near the airport, capable of housing 350 guests between them.

Located opposite the main control tower, the two hotels will help alleviate pressure on the nearby Hilton Hotel, which recently finished building forty extra rooms. Local accommodation will be expected to cope with an explosion in passenger numbers over the coming year.

Up to 500 jobs will be created by the hotel, including 325 construction positions. A completion date has yet to be agreed upon.

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The security chief position has been axed at Edinburgh Airport, with the terminal manager set to take over all security operations from now on. This has led security experts to criticise the move, and even the Prime Minister has become involved by saying that he will look into the decision.

Over 9 million passengers use Edinburgh Airport every year, and with the threat of international terrorism increasing across the world, demonstrated by the recent Christmas Day bomb alert in Detroit, it seems sensible that the major airports have dedicated security personnel in charge. However, when Alistair Bonthron leaves the post the security team is to merge with the terminal team.

Gordon Brown said that BAA had to take its responsibilities seriously when it came to security. He was responding to the Liberal Democrat MP, John Barrett, who brought up his concerns with the Prime Minister. Brown said that it is “a matter to be worked out but I shall obviously look into the case.”

A spokeswoman for BAA said that the same arrangement was in place at Glasgow Airport and reiterated that safety and security were a priority at all BAA Airports. The managing director of the airport, Gordon Dewar, also confirmed that security is a “foremost priority” and highlighted the tens of millions of pounds spent on new security facilities and staff training at Edinburgh Airport over recent years.

However, the former head of security for BAA, Norman Shanks, said that the decision seemed “odd”, adding that safeguards would need to be put in place to prevent the decision leading to any lack of security.

Last week thousands of holidaymakers woke to find that their carrier, Flyglobespan, Scotland’s biggest airline, had gone bust. The airline had denied earlier in the week that liquidation was on the cards, saying that Jersey company, Halcyon Investments, were about to offer a major funding package.

Like other airlines, Flyglobespan had been hit by the recession, making a loss of £19 million in 2007 – 2008 although a profit of £1.2 million for 2008 – 2009 had seemed to herald better times. Spiralling fuel costs and plummeting passenger numbers though were obviously too great an impediment to recovery.

Not only were 5000 holidaymakers stranded abroad and 117,000 prospective holidaymakers facing disappointment, but 800 staff were left facing Christmas without a job. Apart from a small nucleus who will be employed to oversee the winding up of the company, all other staff members will be made redundant.

Ryanair and Easyjet were offering to fly stranded passengers home where routes overlap for fares between £60 and £89. Apart from flying to Mediterranean resorts, the airline also operated routes to Florida and Egypt.

Passengers who booked using a credit card or through an ATOL bonded agent should get their money back eventually but there are tens of thousands who had holidays booked who will lose their money, having used debit cards or booked flights only through the website.

News was breaking at the weekend that the airline had been badly let down by the credit card handling agency, E-Clear, said to owe Flyglobespan £34 million. If even part of this sum had been in the airline’s bank account the crisis could have been averted, according to the Finance Minister.

Giant spiders found yet another way to terrorise British travellers last week – they learnt to fly.

In the 1950’s, low budget horror movies were a staple of Hollywood cinema, often starring unknown actors and teary-eyed damsels, battling to save the earth from giant monsters, killer robots, and green aliens with ray guns.

The genre reached a crescendo in the sixties but unusual creatures continue to grace our screens, stomping all over New York, or emerging from a tin box on Horsell Common, tentacles flapping in the breeze.

Of course, there’s no such thing as the bogeyman, as the mantra goes. The monsters we see on TV every Saturday night are stuntmen in rubber suits, trying to catch a break as a serious actor, the aliens are puppets, clever robots on thin pieces of wire, and creepy-crawlies cannot fly.

Or can they?

A British Airways (BA) passenger got the shock of his life last week, when a real life movie monster marched between his legs – a giant tarantula, catching an early morning flight from London to Edinburgh.

Specialist bug zappers were called in from Gatwick Airport to deal with the stowaway spider, but an exhaustive search has since revealed no trace of the arachnid. Officials have conceded that the tarantula could still be aboard the aircraft, hiding.

“It is unusual for something like this to be found on a domestic service, but an exhaustive search of the aircraft would probably involve stripping it to its components." BA offered few condolences to travelling arachnophobes.

Despite their fearsome reputation, tarantulas are not dangerous to humans, although many species possess a nasty bite. Officials have speculated that the eight-legged beastie might have arrived on a cargo shipment, and simply caught the wrong plane home.

Foreign arrivals at Edinburgh Airport are likely to see some long delays over the next few months as the immigrations hall has started to undergo huge renovations. The hall will be enlarged by 25%, and the works are likely to seriously affect millions of foreign travellers passing through the airport.

Edinburgh is one of the busiest airports in the UK, and currently sees flights arriving from 25 countries. The majority of these are from Ireland, Germany, France and Spain.

9 million passengers passed through the airport last year, and 40% of those were international travellers. The number of overseas passengers passing through the airport has tripled over the last decade, and is certain to expand even further following the renovations to the immigrations hall.

The rise in international passengers has been rapid. In 1999, 700,000 international passengers passed through the airport each year. In the last few years this figure has been more like 2 million a year, or about 10,000 per day. This huge rise was not expected, and it is this that has led to the need for the increase in the size of the immigrations hall.

Gordon Dewar, the managing director of Edinburgh Airport, apologised in advance for the problems that it would cause to numerous journeys. He explained that, with a project of such a size, there were certain to be problems that could not be prevented. He confirmed that the airport is “working closely with the UK Border Agency, airlines and others” in a bid to keep disruption to a minimum.

The new immigration hall will use advanced technology to provide improved security, such as facial recognition software. The redesign will cost in the region of £2 million.

Edinburgh Airport has been bucking the trend to show increased passenger numbers during July. This is the fourth consecutive month that numbers have been rising, showing how popular the airport continues to be compared to its competition. It was, however, a different story for Aberdeen and Glasgow airports, both of which saw traffic fall sharply.

Whereas Aberdeen saw a 9% drop in passenger numbers when compared to the same time last year, and Glasgow witnessed a 12.9% fall, Edinburgh went against the grain to see a 5.6% rise.

Overall, BAA’s airports witnessed a 4.6% drop in passenger numbers, with just over 2 million people using the airports. However, a spokesman for BAA said that it still represented a “substantial number of travellers”.

BAA Scotland also announced that, despite the falls across the board, there were now signs of stabilisation, as July’s drop was the smallest such drop since January.

The recession has had a huge effect on the troubled aviation industry, which has seen passenger numbers drop significantly as people try to save money on their holidays. But it seemed that some people were simply not willing to give up their annual holiday away in the sun, which could account for the latest figures.

Edinburgh’s performance was one of the best in the country, with Heathrow only posting a 0.9% growth during July and Stansted and Gatwick also posting falls. Overall, passenger numbers across all BAA airports were down 2.4% compared to last year.

The deputy chief executive at Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, Graham Birse, was pleased with the figures, stating that any rumours of problems within the financial sector of the city had been “grossly exaggerated”.

Michael O’Leary has found a friend in Edinburgh Airport as his budget airline, Ryanair, prepares to expand its operations at the Scottish facility.

The additional routes will augment Ryanair’s current roster with eight others, including winter flights to Barcelona in Spain, Munich in Germany, Oslo in Norway and Gdańsk in Poland.

Edinburgh and Ryanair have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship for a number of years, but the recent expansion marks a significant 42% increase in flights over the same period last year, when the airline offered just nine destinations.

Company representative Stephen McNamara hailed a “dramatic increase” in flights. The airline has also added routes to airports in Dusseldorf in Germany and Madrid in Spain.

Ryanair has been busy reshuffling its UK operations, drawing criticism from airport bosses and forcing some customers to alter their holiday plans. Earlier in the week, the airline moved many of its planes away from Manchester Airport, blaming excessive landing fees for its decision.

Many of Manchester’s planes are now idling on the apron at Edinburgh.

In celebration of the new routes, Ryanair is helping winter passengers "beat the recession” by offering millions of 99p seats. Add the obligatory taxes, however, and two adults flying from Edinburgh to Girona, Barcelona and back can expect to pay around £88, excluding baggage and handling fees (call it £110, with one suitcase).

The new routes come into effect on the 30th October (Lanzarote), 31st October (Tenerife), 3rd November (Barcelona, Brussels, Gdańsk) and the 4th November 2009 (Gran Canaria, Munich, Oslo). Tickets can be purchased online.

RDC Aviation, a consultancy firm for the air transport industry, has declared Edinburgh International the best performing airport in the UK, despite a ten percent drop in passenger numbers.

The airport, which recently celebrated its busiest day ever, recorded an exponential rise in cargo tonnage, bucking a trend that saw commercial traffic drop by 25% throughout the rest of the UK.

Flights from Bournemouth and Cardiff helped boost domestic arrivals at Edinburgh, but the Scottish facility continued to fall to a record low of nine million annual customers – a drop of 100,000, the lowest of all UK airports.

London Stansted, East Midlands, and Robin Hood airports all saw passenger numbers plummet during 2008. Even London Heathrow, the third busiest airport in the world, lost a full one percent of its sixty-eight million customers.

With the recession in retreat, an estimated £250m has been earmarked for the re-development of many of Edinburgh’s key facilities. A new departure lounge – costing around £40m – is due to be completed in 2010. A project to resurface the main runway was also completed in November 2008.

Climate Camp Scotland, an environmental pressure group, has taken umbrage over the extension plans, and threatened to raid Edinburgh Airport as part of a wider campaign of industrial sabotage.

The group went on to destroy a key conveyor belt at a nearby Scottish Coal facility, interrupting operations, and putting 30,000 coal trucks back on the road. Diarmaid Lynch, a spokesperson for the group, described the attack as “fantastic.”

Despite the threats, however, Edinburgh airport was eventually spared the group’s brand of vigilante justice.

If you were the absent minded person guilty of leaving a piece of luggage unattended in the ladies' toilets at Edinburgh airport last week, you may well want to think twice before confessing to the fact.

The said suitcase was the cause of a full security alert which led to the check-in and security areas being closed, flights being seriously delayed and thousands of passengers being evacuated from the terminal building, whilst a bomb disposal team blew up the case which was discovered to have nothing suspicious inside it.

The evacuation happened last Monday afternoon (6 July 2009) just after the Easyjet flight to Amsterdam had taken off. By 5pm the airport had reopened although passengers were warned to expect delays whilst the backlog of flights was dealt with. Amongst those facing serious delays were the Heart of Midlothian football team, due to fly out to Germany for training and a friendly match.

Only last month there were other dramatic scenes at the airport when a Loganair flight to the Isle of Man had to be abandoned and passengers evacuated from the aircraft, after smoke was seen coming from one of the engines, just minutes before the plane was due to take off.

This followed a previous incident when an Air France aircraft experienced problems on the runway which, given the recent Air France tragedy over the Atlantic which killed 228 people, left passengers on the Edinburgh flight badly shaken.

Edinburgh airport has recently recorded its busiest ever day with 35,899 passengers passing through the airport.