Ryanair wings it over its Slovak competitors

If you're planning a jaunt to Slovakia's capital city then the chances are that you'll be flying Ryanair as figures published this month show the once tiny Irish carrier now shovels more than two thirds of all passengers into and out of the Eastern European state.

Mr Michael O'leary's distinctive blue and yellow jets now operate 17 routes from Bratislava to places as diverse as Brussels, Paris, Bologna, Liverpool and Alicante meaning that you can easily combine the city with other pit stops around Europe.

More people are flying in and out of the capital as well; in 2001 just 300,000 travellers took to the skies - now the figure is 2.2 million. The penny-pinching budget airline - notorious for its ever crafty ways of charging passengers for all those extras - has been helped in its stranglehold on the Slovak Republic's flights by the collapse of the country's national carrier, CSA, and SkyEurope - which fell victim to the economic global downturn. The other major player in the skies is DanubeWings and along with Ryanair was responsible for most of the 28 new routes which opened in 2009 connecting up the capital with even more of the rest of the world.

So while Bratislava is quite definitely at the heart of Europe geographically, now its one the most well-connected cities in Eastern Europe too. The only drawback is that you might just have to fork out a pound for the loos to get there though!