URGES LATVIAN GOVT & RIGA AIRPORT TO REDUCE ACCESS COSTS TO GROW LATVIAN TRAFFIC, TOURISM & JOBS

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Thurs, 9 Oct) announced it will reduce its Riga Winter ‘25 capacity by 160,000 seats (-20%) and cut 7 international routes – Aarhus, Berlin, Edinburgh, Gdansk, Gothenburg, Memmingen, and Paris Beauvais due to rising access costs (airport fees, aviation tax), which make Riga less competitive as traffic remains below pre-Covid levels (90%).

Since Ryanair opened its Riga base in Nov ‘21, access costs have risen, while competitor countries such as Italy, Hungary, Poland, and Albania are abolishing aviation taxes and reducing airport charges to drive traffic and tourism growth. Ryanair has presented an ambitious growth plan to the Latvian Govt to double Riga’s traffic by +1.7m passengers (to 3.4m), base two additional aircraft (US$200m incremental investment) and launch 14 new routes over the next five years. However, this growth can only be delivered if Riga Airport and the Latvian Govt reduce airport charges and abolish the aviation tax.

Ryanair’s CCO, Jason McGuinness, said:

“Ryanair regrets being forced to reduce our Riga Winter ‘25 capacity by 20% (160,000 seats) and cancel 7 international routes. These cuts follow rising access costs at Riga Airport – which have increased by 15% since Ryanair opened its Riga base in 2021. Uncompetitive access costs only serve to undermine Latvia’s traffic recovery – which remains 10% below pre-Covid levels – and has directly resulted in the loss of routes, reduced connectivity.

While countries like Albania, Poland, Sweden, and Italy are lowering access costs and abolishing aviation taxes to stimulate traffic growth, rising costs at Riga Airport is stifling expansion and putting hundreds of jobs at risk. Recently the Latvian Govt. and Riga Airport have committed to improving the competitiveness of Latvian Aviation, subject to which, Ryanair will prioritise Latvia for more low-fare seats, new routes, and additional based aircraft.

We are working with Riga Airport and the Latvian Govt. and hope in the near future to grow traffic, tourism, and jobs.

CALLS ON THE LITHUANIAN GOVT TO REDUCE ACCESS COSTS TO SUPPORT GROWTH

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Wed, 8 Oct) confirmed it will deliver zero growth in Lithuania for Winter ’25, as rising airport access costs continue to block recovery, limit connectivity and prevent the country from unlocking its full potential for tourism, jobs, and economic growth.

While competing European countries such as Albania, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, and Italy are reducing costs and abolishing aviation taxes to stimulate airline traffic, Lithuania is moving in the opposite direction. Instead of lowering costs to drive recovery, Lithuanian Airports have inexplicably chosen to increase airport charges – with Vilnius up +30% since 2023 – leaving the airport uncompetitive and traffic still -2% below pre-Covid levels.

This lack of competitiveness is particularly damaging in Vilnius, where the opening of the new terminal – which has doubled capacity at the Airport – should represent a huge opportunity for Lithuania to expand connectivity, develop inbound tourism and create jobs. However, rising access costs are stifling this opportunity, and if the Government acts now to make Lithuania more competitive and reduces airport fees – especially at Vilnius – Ryanair is ready to deliver its transformational growth plan which will double traffic from 1.4m to 2.8m seats, add 10 new routes and base 3 additional aircraft (5 tot.), creating jobs and boosting tourism in Lithuania’s capital city.

Ryanair’s CCO, Jason McGuinness, said:

“It’s disappointing that Ryanair will deliver zero growth in Lithuania for Winter ’25, which is entirely the result of the rising access costs at Lithuanian airports – with Lithuanian Airports choosing to raise charges at Vilnius by 30% and Palanga by 7%. These increases, at a time when other European countries are cutting costs to drive growth, are leaving Lithuania hopelessly uncompetitive, slowing its recovery and resulting in reduced connectivity, forcing the reallocation of capacity to faster-growing, lower-cost markets across Europe.

The opening of the expanded Vilnius terminal has doubled available capacity at the Airport, providing a clear opportunity to boost connectivity, tourism, and jobs – but rising access costs are holding Vilnius back, preventing the airport and Lithuania from turning this potential into tangible growth and enhanced connectivity.

While countries like Albania, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, and Italy are reducing access costs to stimulate traffic growth, regrettably Lithuania is going in the opposite direction. Ryanair urges the Lithuanian Govt. to reduce access costs and become far more competitive to unlock Ryanair’s ambitious growth plan – doubling Vilnius traffic from 1.4m to 2.8m seats p.a., creating jobs, and boosting tourism and economic growth. Without urgent action, fares for Lithuanian passengers will rise and Ryanair will continue to allocate aircraft and capacity to more competitive growth orientated markets elsewhere in Europe.”

CALLS ON ESTONIAN GOVT TO REDUCE ACCESS COSTS TO GROW TRAFFIC & TOURISM

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Wed, 8 Oct) announced it will reduce its Tallinn Winter ‘25 capacity by 40%, resulting in the loss of 110,000 seats and 5 international routes – Milan Bergamo, Paphos, Rome Ciampino, Venice Treviso, and Vienna – on top of the 45% capacity cut (-230,000 seats) already announced to Tallinn’s Summer ’25 schedule. These cuts are the direct results of Tallinn Airport’s 70% increase in airport charges, which is harming Estonia’s competitiveness as a destination, at a time when other countries like Sweden, Hungary, Poland, and regional Italy, are actively lowering costs to grow traffic and tourism.

Ryanair’s record growth in these cost-competitive markets demonstrates the immediate impact that lower access costs deliver. If the Estonian Govt and Tallinn Airport act now to reduce access costs and make the airport competitive again, Ryanair is ready to deliver on its ambitious growth proposal to double capacity by 700,000 seats to 1.4 million p.a., substantially growing Estonia’s traffic, tourism, and jobs.

Ryanair’s CCO, Jason McGuinness, said:

“Tallinn Airport’s illogical decision to increase airport charges by 70% at a time when other European airports and countries are reducing charges to stimulate investment and travel has forced Ryanair to reduce its Tallinn Winter’25 capacity by 40%, resulting in the loss of 110,000 seats and 5 international routes. When combined with this Summer’s cuts Tallinn hast lost over 340,000 Ryanair seats across the full year. These cuts will severely damage traffic, jobs, and tourism growth in Estonia.

While competitor countries such as Albania, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Sweden are reducing airport fees to stimulate growth – to which Ryanair has responded with more routes, more seats, and more jobs – Tallinn is heading in the opposite direction leading to less direct flights, less low-fare seats, and less inbound tourism.

Ryanair again calls on the Estonian Govt and Tallinn Airport to reverse the 70% charge increase and follow the lead of competitor countries by adopting lower access costs. If this happens, Ryanair stands ready to deliver significant growth in Tallinn, doubling capacity to 1.4m seats p.a., boosting tourism and supporting Estonia’s economic recovery. If the Govt fails to seize this opportunity, fares for Estonian passengers will inevitably rise and Ryanair will be forced to keep reallocating capacity to more competitive growth orientated EU markets.”

Ryanair, Spain’s No.1 airline, today (Wed, 8 Oct) announced that it will reduce its Summer 2026 schedule to Regional Spain by 1.2m seats (-10%). Ryanair will also stop all flights to/from Asturias Airport, as the Aena Monopoly continues to raise its uncompetitive airport fees at Spanish (mostly empty) regional airports. These regrettable cuts follow Ryanair’s 1m seat cuts to Regional Spain for Winter 2025, and are a direct result of the Spanish Govt’s failure to stop Aena’s monopoly fee increases, particularly at under-used Regional airports, and its failure to reverse Minister Bustinduy’s illegal bag fines, despite promising to do so. While Minister Bustinduy continues to illegally interfere in the pricing of low-fare airlines (in breach of EU law), he refuses to take any action against overcharging by a number of Spanish OTAs (online travel agencies) who continue to overcharge and harm unsuspecting Spanish consumers.

The Spanish Govt is the majority shareholder in the Aena Airport Monopoly and has appointed an ex-politician (Maurici Lucena) to run it. Despite this control, the Aena Monopoly continues to raise fees at Spain Regional Airports, making them uncompetitive and harming growth. Aena’s monopoly approach to pricing is that small underused Regional airports should charge similar rates as busy main airports like Madrid, Barcelona, Palma and Malaga. As a result, Ryanair is switching seat capacity to these bigger Spanish airports (where passenger demand and air fares are higher). When faced with high fees at Regional airports, Ryanair has moved to lower cost airports elsewhere in Morocco, Italy, Croatia, Albania, and Sweden, where Govts are abolishing Enviro Taxes and lowering Airport fees.

Ryanair submitted two growth plans — including for some of the airports we are now closing — to Aena and the Spanish Government. These plans would have increased traffic by 40% by 2030, reaching 77 million passengers per year. However, the Spanish Government chose to ignore the proposals, raise airport charges, and sacrifice potential growth and job creation.

Regional Spain can grow, but it needs a Govt committed to stimulating growth by lowering the cost of air travel to/from the Regions of Spain, and a Consumer Minister who actually protects consumers by ending OTA overcharging, while respecting both EU law, and precedent ECJ Court Rulings (the Vueling Case 2014), which clearly prevent national Govts from interfering in the way airlines price seats, or carry-on bags.

Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary, said:

“AENA and its major shareholder, the Spanish Govt, continue to harm regional traffic growth, tourism and jobs in Spain through high airport fees and unjustified price increases. AENA should be lowering airport fees at underused Regional airports, but instead they plan to increase them by 7%, the highest fee increase for over a decade. The Spanish Govt has failed to stimulate Regional tourism and jobs, as it continues to protect the Aena Monopoly’s high fee operations. We regret that these fee increases make Regional Spanish airports uncompetitive, and this is why Ryanair is switching 1.2m more seats away from Regional airports in Spain in S2026, to some of Spain’s bigger airports, but mainly to lower-cost competitor airports in Italy, Morocco, Croatia, Sweden, and Hungary.

Furthermore, despite Govt promises to reverse Minister Bustinduy’s illegal bag fines, Prime Minister Sanchez has taken no action for 2 years now. Bustinduy’s bag fines are clearly illegal, as they are in breach of EU Regulation on airline pricing freedom, and they are in breach of the ECJ Ruling the Vueling case, which established that airlines are free to charge for carry-on bags, as long as every passenger is allowed to bring a small bag “Maleta Gratis” for their personal items. While Minister Bustinduy pursues his illegal bag fines, he has taken zero action against real consumer harm, such as the overcharging of Spain’s consumers by a number OTAs. Ryanair has written 8 letters to Minister Bustinduy between April 2024 and October 2025, calling on him to take action, but he continues to stand idly by as consumers are being overcharged by OTAs. Minister Bustinduy is not just incompetent, but his bag fines are in clear breach of EU law and ECJ Rulings. If Prime Minister Sanchez has any respect for EU law, then he should dismiss Bustinduy, and cancel these illegal bag fines.

Ryanair remains one of Spain’s biggest overseas investors, and we continue to invest heavily in Spain, with 2 new Maintenance Facilities in Madrid and Seville. We will shortly open our new Airline Training Centre in Madrid. While we wish to continue to grow air traffic and connectivity to Regional Spain, we are prevented from doing so by the Aena’s Monopoly high airport fees and the failure of Prime Minister Sanchez and his Govt, to restrain this overcharging Airport Monopoly, which they own and control. We look forward to returning to Growth in Regional Spain, when Aena fees are reduced, making them competitive with lower-cost airports elsewhere in Morocco, Italy, Croatia, Hungary and other EU States, who are abolishing Aviation Taxes and lowering airport fees to grow their traffic and tourism industries.”

Ryanair today (Tue, 7 Oct) released its Oct OTA Survey, which again exposes OTAs, such as eDreams, Tix & Vola, for overcharging customers up to 176% over Ryanair’s prices. These OTAs, do not have distribution agreements with Ryanair, because they wish to continue overcharging consumers. eDreams is the worst offender, selling a reserved seat that costs just €5.67 on Ryanair.com for €15.67 – almost 3 times the Ryanair price. eDreams is overcharging its unsuspecting customers €27.07 for a 10kg bag which costs just €12.99 on Ryanair, an overcharge of more than double Ryanair’s price. 

Ryanair continues to campaign to protect EU consumers from harmful practices used by OTAs such as eDreams, Tix & Vola. Ryanair urges EU Govts and Consumer Protection Agencies to finally take action, and insist on mandatory price transparency from all OTAs, in line with the transparent pricing being delivered by all Ryanair’s “Approved OTA” partners. Despite repeated warnings, many of Europe’s Consumer Agencies and Govts continue to ignore the consumer harm caused by these overcharging OTAs. It is extraordinary that eDreams – a Spanish OTA – continues to overcharge its unsuspecting Spanish consumers while Spain’s useless Consumer Minister, Pablo Bustinduy fails to take any action to defend or protect his own citizens from overcharging.

Ryanair’s Dara Brady said:

“Ryanair’s October OTA survey shows that eDreams, Tix & Vola continue to harm unsuspecting consumers with overcharges of almost 3 times the prices on Ryanair’s website. Despite this evidence of consumer harm, many EU Govts and Consumer Protection Authorities, most notably Spain’s useless Consumer Minister Bustinduy, do nothing to prevent this harm to thousands of Spanish consumers as a result of this overcharging.

Despite this clear overcharging evidence, EU Govts and Consumer Protection Authorities including Spain’s useless Consumer Minister have taken zero action to prevent this overcharging, which continues to harm consumers across Spain and the EU. Ryanair calls on EU Govts and Consumer Protection Agencies to take action to address these OTA overcharges, which are imposing avoidable additional costs for consumers across Europe, and particularly in Spain where eDreams has a large presence.”

ATC CAPACITY SLASHED 50%, DELAYING THOUSANDS OF PASSENGERS

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Fri, 3 Oct) called on EU President, Ursula von “Derlayed-Again”, to urgently reform Europe’s broken ATC system and protect of overflights. This comes as thousands of EU passengers – the vast majority of whom are travelling on overflights – are expected to suffer avoidable flight delays/cancellations due to the Slovenian ATC strike on 6-7 Oct. This is because Slovenia’s minimum service laws do not protect overflights during national ATC strikes, as they do in Italy, Spain, and Greece. As a result, thousands of EU passengers, who are not flying to/from Slovenia but simply overflying Slovenian airspace en route to their destination (e.g., Warsaw to Rome or Athens to Frankfurt, etc. – not Slovenia), will be forced to suffer avoidable delays/cancellations due to national strike that has nothing to do with them.

This is grossly unfair, yet Ursula von “Derlayed-Again” sits in Brussels doing nothing to protect EU passengers or the Single market for air travel. Ryanair is now calling on EU passengers to visit the ‘Air Traffic Control Ruined Your Flight’ webpage and demand that Ursula von “Derlayed-Again” take urgent action to reform the EU’s broken ATC by (1) mandating that national ATC services are fully staffed for the first wave of morning flights or face fines, and (2) protecting overflights (and the Single Market) during national ATC strikes.

Ryanair’s Director of Communications, Jade Kirwan, said:

“It is completely unacceptable that EU passengers not even flying to/from Slovenia but overflying Slovenian airspace en route to their destination (e.g., Warsaw to Rome) are being forced to suffer avoidable flight  delays/cancellations as a result of a Slovenian ATC strike, which has nothing to do with them. This is because Slovenia does not protect overflights during national ATC strikes, like they do in Italy, Spain, and Greece.

Europe’s airlines are united in calling for 2 effective ATC reforms; (1) mandate that national ATC services are fully staffed for the first wave of morning flights or face fines, and (2) protect overflights (and the Single Market) during national ATC strikes. Ryanair calls on Ursula von “Derlayed-Again” to take urgent action to implement these two simple reforms, or step aside and let someone competent do her job.”

OVER 30M PASSENGERS DELAYED BY ATC MISMANAGEMENT & STAFF SHORTAGES IN 2025

RYANAIR CALLS ON URSULA VON “DERLAYED-AGAIN” TO REFORM EU’S BROKEN ATC OR QUIT!

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Fri, 3 Oct) called on EU President, Ursula von “Derlayed-Again” to urgently reform the EU’s broken ATC services or quit. This comes as Ryanair released its September “ATC Delays League”, showing that France, Spain, Germany, the UK, and Greece are the worst ATCs for delays/cancellations because their Govts refuse to ensure their ATC services are properly staffed and managed.

There is no excuse for these worst ATC delays when Bulgaria, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark are delivering efficient ATC services (without mismanagement or staff shortages) and are responsible for the fewest ATC delays/cancellations in Europe this year as a result.

Ryanair has long called for EU ATC reform, but Ursula von “Derlayed-Again” ignores these repeated ATC delays/cancellations, which have disrupted over 30m EU passengers so far this year. Ryanair is now calling on EU passengers to visit the ‘Air Traffic Control Ruined Your Flight’ webpage and demand that Ursula von “Derlayed-Again” take urgent action to reform the EU’s broken ATC by (1) mandating that national ATC services are fully staffed for the first wave of morning flights or face fines, and (2) protecting overflights (and the Single Market) during national ATC strikes.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said:

“It is inexcusable that Europe’s worst performing ATCs in France, Spain, Germany, the UK, and Greece continue to inflict so many avoidable flight delays/cancellations on millions of Ryanair passengers. EU airlines have already offered the solution to these avoidable ATC delays/cancellations; (1) mandate that national ATC services are fully staffed for the first wave of morning flights or face fines, and (2) the EU Comm must act to protect overflights during national ATC strikes. Yet, EU President Ursula von “Derlayed-Again” sits in Brussels doing nothing to protect EU passengers or the Single Market for air travel.

EU ATC needs reform. If Ursula von “Derlayed-Again” won’t deliver it, then she should step aside and let someone competent do her job.”