Ryanair has axed thousands of flights to Spain in a row over airport fees.
The airline said ‘excessive’ fees imposed by Spanish airport operator Aena provoked the move as the budget airline battles with aviation officials.
Ryanair will stop flying to the airports in southern Jerez and northern Valladolid, withdraw one aircraft based in Santiago and reduce traffic at five other regional airports.
Aena has criticised the airline axing the flights, accusing Ryanair of ‘blackmail’ and trying to force the operator to grant free access to its airports, the Telegraph reports.
‘Unfortunately, this is Ryanair’s modus operandi. In many countries, we have seen it for years: threats, half-truths, lies…,’ Aena’s president said in a statement.
‘I honestly believe that they have crossed the Rubicon of respect, good faith and the most basic business and institutional courtesy.’
Ryanair announced that it would reduce traffic in Spain by 18 per cent, cutting about 800,000 seats and 12 routes due to Aena’s ‘excessive airport charges’, which it said were harming regional Spanish airports and limiting their growth.
It is not known whether flights from the UK will be among those cuts.
It comes after the budget airline was handed a £90million fine by Spain’s consumer rights ministry last year over ‘abusive practices’ like levying excessive bag fees and other extra charges, the Telegraph reports.
Ryanair Global CEO Michael O’Leary hit back, telling Spanish media that ‘crazy communist minister’ Pablo Bustinduy believed passengers could carry ‘all the luggage they want’, which O’Leary said ‘they cannot’.
Aena said the fees came to £8.60 per passenger at most of Spain’s airports, with the operator dropping the price at 17 regional airports to just £1.66 per passenger in October to make them more attractive destinations for airlines.
It claimed this made the fees the cheapest in Europe, but Ryanair said that this was ‘false’ considering operators in Italy and Poland, which it said offer even cheaper options.
Ryanair cutting all flights to Valladolid means that only one airline, Binter Canarias, is still servicing the small regional airport, offering a flight to Gran Canaria twice a week.
The airline is set to reduce traffic to Vigo by 61 per cent, to Santiago by 28 per cent, to Zaragoza by 20 per cent, to Asturias by 11 per cent and to Santander by five per cent this summer.
Santander, Santiago and Vigo are serviced by Ryanair from London Stansted, with Santiago also being flies to from Manchester and Edinburgh, but it is not clear whether any of these routes are impacted by the cuts.
Ryanair is the only airline flying from the UK to Santander, so cancellations would result in limited access for travellers.
‘Anyone relying on these routes, either because they are trying to get off the beaten track or to avoid in Spain, is likely to be disappointed,’ Rhys Jones, who works at the aviation travel website Head for Points, told the Telegraph.
The move could also result in increased flight prices at the affected airports as competition decreases and customers could be forced to travel via more expensive and ‘convoluted’ indirect routes.
But Ryanair’s move hasn’t resulted in Aena backing down.
‘Aena cordially urges Ryanair to calm down and abandon its long-standing and regrettably well-known mendacious, aggressive and threatening business and communication strategy, which it is very difficult not to interpret as an attempt to blackmail Aena, the region and, ultimately, the Spanish public,’ the operator said in a statement.
This comes after Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson urged the Spain’s National Authority for Markets and Competition to cancel Aena’s 2024 fee increases to align them with the Government’s five-year fee freeze on hikes of the charges.
‘Without urgent action, Spain risks losing further capacity and investment to more competitive markets, leaving regional airports half-empty while Spain’s competitors thrive,’ he said in a statement.
