Ryanair’s Spanish route cuts: Is Aena’s €0.68 airport fee rise really behind the loss of 1m seats this winter?
September 5, 2025
Ryanair is pulling almost one million seats from its Spanish winter 2025/26 schedule, citing what it calls punitive increases in airport charges by state operator Aena.
The reduction, which amounts to around 16% of its national capacity, comes on top of summer trims and will push the total cut for 2025 close to two million seats.
The airline will close its base at Santiago de Compostela, end flights at Vigo from January 2026, and stop serving Tenerife North this winter.
Reductions will hit regional airports hardest: capacity is set to fall 45% in Zaragoza, 38% in Santander, and 16% in Asturias. In all, around 36 connections between the mainland and the Canary Islands will disappear, including some inter-island services.
Ryanair said Aena’s proposed fee hikes would make these airports unviable. Chief executive Michael O’Leary branded the plan “blackmail” and accused Aena of prioritising short-term revenue over long-term connectivity.
Aena slams Ryanair over Spanish airport fee row
Aena’s chairman and CEO, Maurici Lucena, fired back with unusually fierce language. He accused Ryanair of “hypocrisy, rudeness, and extortion”, and warned that if Aena bowed to what he called the airline’s “whining, swindling and intolerable strategy of extortion,” Spanish airports would “cease to function well.”
In one of the sharpest lines, Lucena declared:
“No supernatural demonic force compels Ryanair to be one of Aena’s biggest customers.”
He rejected the suggestion that Spain was becoming uncompetitive for tourism, noting that 2025 will likely set a new record with nearly 100 million international visitors and a historically strong winter flight schedule.
Lucena also pointed to recovery examples, such as Vueling reinstating the Valladolid–Barcelona route after Ryanair withdrew.
Why is Ryanair cutting Spanish routes?
At the heart of the row is Aena’s plan to raise fees by 6.62% from March 2026.
That equates to roughly €0.68 more per passenger, taking the average airport charge to €11.03. Aena says the rise is legally mandated under Act 18/2014 and modest compared with the airline’s own pricing trends—Ryanair fares have risen more than 20% year-on-year.
By comparison, charges at other major European hubs are already higher: Heathrow’s per-passenger fee sits at around €31, while Paris Charles de Gaulle is about €17–18. Even after the increase, Spain remains among the cheapest in Europe for carriers.
That raises the question of whether Ryanair’s pullback is really about charges. Analysts suggest the airline may be reallocating aircraft to higher-yield markets in Italy, Albania, Morocco and northern Europe, using the fee dispute as a convenient justification.
Lucena himself noted that the carrier is acting out of commercial choice: “Ryanair operates at our airports because it is profitable for them, and only for that reason.”
In effect, the airline appears to be leveraging a moderate fee hike to pressure Spain’s airport operator, while shifting capacity to markets it views as more lucrative. The political backlash, however, shows the costs will be borne by regional airports and passengers who depend on them.
