Ryanair is to add five new routes to its summer schedule at Stansted next year, bring the number of destinations served by the low-cost carrier from the airport to 144.

The additional routes include Frankfurt in Germany, twice daily, Aalborg in Denmark and Dusseldorf (Weeze) in Germany, both four times weekly, and Oradea in Romania and Pardubice in the Czech Republic, both three times weekly.

As a result of the expansion, Ryanair says it expects its annual passenger total at Stansted to increase to around 21.4m.

With five new routes also being introduced by Ryanair at Gatwick next summer and one more at Luton, its London schedule for summer 2018 will involve a total of 168 routes and around 24.8m passenger journeys.

Unveiling the schedule in London, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said: “UK customers and visitors are booking our summer and winter 2017 seats in record numbers as fares continue to fall, so there’s never been a better time to book a low fare flight on Ryanair.”

However, he added: “We remain concerned at the uncertainty which surrounds the terms of the UK’s departure from the EU in March ’19.

“While we continue to campaign for the UK to remain in the EU Open Skies agreement, we caution that should the UK leave, there may not be sufficient time, or goodwill on both sides, to negotiate a timely replacement bilateral which could result in a disruption of flights between the UK and Europe for a period of time from April ’19 onwards, and/or the cancellation of flights and routes, and the movement of our based aircraft to Continental Europe.”