Budget airline Ryanair yesterday reported record advance bookings for its summer schedule at Stansted, as it celebrated the launch of its latest new route at the airport.

The Bulgarian capital of Sofia is one of four new routes being launched by Ryanair at Stansted, along with Milan Malpensa, Palanga and Verona.

It means that Dublin-based Ryanir will be operating a total of 130 routes from Stansted this summer, putting it on target to carry 20million passengers to and from the airport in a full year.

Lisa Buckley, sales and marketing executive at Ryanair, said: “We are delighted with the strength of the forward bookings on our 130 routes to London Stansted as part of our summer 2016 schedule.

“We are especially excited to celebrate our inaugural flight to Sofia and our other three new summer routes to Milan Malpensa, Palanga, and Verona, which will deliver 20m customers p.a. at London Stansted Airport.”

Neringa Öhrström, Stansted Airport’s marketing manager, added: “The launch of Ryanair’s service to Sofia is fantastic news and is another exciting new addition to Stansted’s extensive route network which already serves more scheduled destinations in Europe than any other UK airport.”