The airline already serves Nice and Marseille, in France, from the Luxembourg airport.

The news adds to the growth of Luxembourg’s Findel airport, from which passengers could access some 82 destinations directly at the end of 2018.

This growth appears to be fragile given the challenges facing airlines in recent years.

Ferocious competition is blamed for the collapse of around a dozen small European airlines, including close to home Adria, a former Slovenian carrier, which operated the Saarbrucken-Berlin line for Luxair until 24 September 2019. Luxair later announced the closure of the route for economic reasons.

This week it is the turn of UK regional carrier Flybe, which operates flights between Luxembourg and Manchester and was on the brink of financial collapse. The UK government was on Tuesday examining cutting air passenger duty on domestic flights and deferring payment of a $100m tax bill for three years in a bid to save the airline.