The budget carrier are set to add another five European routes from the North East England airport this winter amid plans to base a third Boeing 737 Max 8-200 there.

The new aircraft will be at Newcastle from the end of October, when Ryanair will launch new routes to Brussels, Budapest, Gdansk, Malta and Wroclaw.

This will take the airline's total number of routes out of the airport to 17, and under the expansion plans, Ryanair will also be increasing the frequencies of flights from Newcastle to Alicante, Krakow and Dublin.

Richard Knight, Newcastle Airport’s chief operating officer, said: “This expansion will deliver over one million passengers for Ryanair over the next 12 months, reflecting the strength of our partnership and the growing demand for connectivity from the North East to key European destinations.

"Brussels is a new connection for the airport's departure board and will provide great connectivity for both leisure and business passengers to the capital of Belgium.”

Ryanair's chief commercial officer Jason McGuinness said: "We are delighted to announce this additional US$100m investment in Newcastle today. This third Boeing 737 8-200 'Gamechanger' based aircraft arriving in Winter will provide a huge economic boost to the North East – delivering 120,000 (+36%) additional seats and five new routes to Brussels, Budapest, Gdańsk, Malta, and Wrocław, as well as supporting over 850 local jobs including 30 local pilot and cabin crew jobs we're now hiring for.

"This Winter Ryanair will operate a record schedule at Newcastle that will deliver more than one million annual passengers thanks to the hard work of Newcastle Airport to remain competitive despite Labour's reckless decision to increase the regressive APD tax. As an island economy on the periphery of Europe, it is vital that UK airports particularly in the regions offer competitive access costs to airlines."