By April Drew

RYANAIR, Ireland’s low fares airline, announced last week it plans to create a sister airline that allows passengers to fly from the U.S. to Europe for just $12 one-way by 2009.

Ryanair Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary told European reporters last week he plans to jump on the back of the recent open skies agreement between Europe and the U.S. (commencing in March next year, airlines can fly anywhere in the U.S. to anywhere in Europe, instead of only to their home nations) and would like to bring a low fare air service to the U.S.

“We’ve been approached by a number of airports in the U.S. that are very keen to see us start a long-haul, low-fare service and we’re working on plans to start flying the Atlantic,” O’Leary said.

Ryanair, which already competes with Aer Lingus, the Irish carrier that O’Leary tried to buy in October, charges what it claims to be the lowest fares in Europe. Currently an economy fare with Aer Lingus from New York to Dublin one-way is approximately $216. Ryanair, which now flies 42 million passengers to 25 European countries each year, presently have one-cent fares on offer on their site to various destinations in Europe.

O’Leary told Flight International magazine in an interview on Friday, “By mid-2009, we will be carrying 70 million passengers at 23 bases across Europe, It will be relatively straightforward for us to do a deal for 40 to 50 long-haul aircraft and connect these bases trans-atlantically.”

He also told the magazine the new airline would be run entirely separately from Ryanair, having its own executives, board and a completely different name. Although the Dublin-based service isn’t luxurious, it will have a fraction of seats for sale to business and first class customers.

U.S. cities Ryanair plan to fly to include New York, Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas and Florida among others. Ryanair, which plans to purchase larger planes such as the Boeing 787 or Airbus A350’s to make the trans-Atlantic journey, plans to use low-cost regional airports such as MacArthur in Long Island to land in New York.

Public information officer of the town of Islip, Catherine Green, told the Irish Voice on Tuesday that although MacArthur Airport, which is run by the town of Islip, hasn’t been approached by Ryanair on the issue and is currently not set up to accept international flights, they are certainly open to new ideas.

In other airline news, flights by Flyglobespan from Ireland’s West Knock Airport to the U.S. are being snapped up rapidly. The March 27th inaugural flight to Boston had sold 84% of their seats and the first flight to New York was close behind with 77% of its seats sold at time of print.

Liam Scollan, managing director at the airport, told Irish media last week that the airport is “most heartened” by people’s response on both sides of the Atlantic.

“Flyglobespan is the airline that responded to this airport and the people in the West of Ireland and East Coast U.S. by making the transatlantic dream happen and they deserve more and more support for their belief in the West of Ireland,” he said.