Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline has today (Wednesday, 13^th Jan) called on the Belgian Government to save tourism and thousands of jobs by implementing incentive schemes to reduce airport and landing charges and stimulate passenger recovery at Charleroi and Zaventem airports for summer 21. Instead of wasting €290m of taxpayers’ money on bailing out German-owned Brussels Airlines (through illegal state aid) Ryanair calls on the Belgian Government to take immediate action to reduce airport and landing charges that will help protect vital air transport links.

Ryanair has worked with airports and Governments across Europe to secure airport charges reductions. The Belgian Government should support passenger incentive schemes at Charleroi and Zaventem airports, available to all airlines on an equal basis to restore and grow traffic from summer 21.

A spokesperson for Ryanair said:

“We oppose any state aid that is non-transparent and discriminatory. The Belgian Govt has been busy sending €290m of Belgian taxpayers money to Frankfurt to bail out a German-owned airline, when Lufthansa say they don’t even need this money, and yet this Government has failed to implement any incentive schemes that will aid the recovery of passenger numbers for summer 21 which supports Belgian jobs at Belgian Airports.  

At a time when aviation is going through its biggest crisis in its history, the Government and airports should be implementing new incentive schemes that reduce airport and landing charges at all Belgian airports and stimulate recovery instead of sending Belgian taxpayers’ money to Frankfurt.