Ryanair, Europe’s No. 1 airline, today (Fri, 27 Mar) called on Prime Minister De Wever to scrap the Belgium Govt’s five-fold federal aviation tax increase NOW, rather than “reassessing” it in July, when airlines’ Winter 26/Summer 27 schedules will already have been set and Belgian traffic, tourism and jobs will be already lost.

While Ryanair welcomes Prime Minister De Wever’s realisation that excessively taxing air traffic is not the way to grow tourism and jobs – but instead sends traffic to other lower cost, zero-tax, competitor destinations elsewhere in Europe, like Sweden, Hungary, Slovakia, regional Italy, or Albania, where Govts are abolishing aviation taxes to grow traffic, tourism and jobs. Delaying the “reassessment” of this damaging tax until the middle of the busy summer season, when airlines have already finalised their Winter 26/Summer 27 schedules, makes no sense and will not mitigate the loss of Belgian traffic, tourism and jobs. That decision will be made in advance of July.

If Prime Minister De Wever does not wish to be responsible for the loss of over 2 million seats and thousands of jobs at Charleroi Airport from October next, then he should push now to immediately scrap Belgium’s aviation tax altogether – as Sweden, Hungary, Slovakia, Italy and Albania have done.

Ryanair CEO, Eddie Wilson, said:

“Ryanair calls on Prime Minister De Wever to stop wasting time “reassessing” Belgium’s five-fold aviation tax increase by July, and instead scrap this harmful aviation tax NOW. July is too late – airlines will have already set their Winter 26 / Summer 27 schedules. If Prime Minister De Wever really wants to prevent Belgium from haemorrhaging traffic, tourism and jobs then he should scrap the tax NOW, without any further delay.”