Ryanair, Italy’s no.1 airline, has today (23 June) announced that it has been forced to remove 1 based aircraft ($100M investment), cancel 6 routes and cut flights on a further 6 routes from Venice Marco Polo Airport for Winter ’23 due to Venice Municipality’s decision to implement an excessive and ill-thought-out 38% (€2.50) tax increase for every man, woman and child departing Venice Marco Polo Airport from 30^th May 2023, adding to the €6.50 tax currently in place.

Venice Municipality’s decision to increase Venice’s access costs will stifle connectivity and growth and have a detrimental impact on Venetians and the recovering Venice tourism industry. As a result of this excessive tax increase, Ryanair has been forced to reallocate capacity from Venice Marco Polo Airport to competing cities in Spain and Portugal which do not have such a penal tax and instead offer lower access costs to stimulate tourism recovery and growth.

Ryanair calls on the Venice Municipality to urgently scrap this excessive tax increase to avoid further capacity cuts which will have a devastating impact not only on Venice Marco Polo Airport but also the City of Venice where connectivity is the lifeblood of the local tourism industry. 

Ryanair’s Chief Commercial Officer Jason McGuinness said:

“We regret the nonsensical decision by the Venice Municipality to increase the Municipal Tax by 38% from €6.50 to €9 per passenger from 30^th May which has forced Ryanair to remove one based aircraft ($100M investment) and cancel 6 routes from Venice Marco Polo Airport, incl. Alghero, Cologne, Bournemouth, Helsinki, Nuremberg, and Fuerteventura for Winter ’23.

There is no justification for this excessive tax increase which makes Venice one of the most expensive and uncompetitive cities in Europe. The Venice Municipality should be lowering, not increasing, access costs to help stimulate traffic and its fragile tourism industry which is still recovering from the pandemic.

We call on the Venice Municipality to immediately scrap this ludicrous tax increase to make Venice competitive again for the benefit of its tourism industry and ultimately the local people.”