MADRID (Reuters) -Irish budget airline Ryanair said on Thursday it would cut flights at seven regional airports in Spain this summer due to what it called “excessive fees” levied by state-controlled airport operator Aena.
Overall, it will reduce capacity on 12 routes by 18% and cancel some 800,000 passenger seats compared with the previous summer, the carrier added in a statement.
Ryanair has been complaining for several years about the airport fees charged by Aena, despite a freeze during the COVID-19 pandemic and a December decision by the competition watchdog to block an increase planned in 2025.
Aena said its average fee of 10.35 euros ($10.66) per passenger was “one of the lowest in Europe”.
The operator said data on Ryanair’s flight programming for this summer at its airports implied more seats available than the airline had last summer, when it increased its activity at Spanish airports by 8.7%.
Aena added it “laments Ryanair’s use of spurious arguments … to confuse citizens and put pressure on public institutions”.
Ryanair said it would stop operating in the cities of Jerez and Valladolid and also reduce the number of flights to and from Vigo, Santiago de Compostela, Zaragoza, Santander and the airport of Asturias.
The airline, the largest in Spain in terms of passengers, said it would redeploy its aircraft and capacity in countries such as Italy, Sweden, Croatia, Hungary and Morocco, “where governments encourage growth,” it said.
More than 309 million passengers travelled through Aena’s Spanish airports in 2024, an all-time high, as the country attracted a record number of foreign tourists.
Spanish authorities expect the tourism boom to continue this year.
($1 = 0.9705 euros)
(Reporting by Inti Landauro. Writing by David Latona. Editing by Andrei Khalip and Mark Potter)
