Budget carrier Ryanair has confirmed its second major Spanish flight route reduction in 2025, after earlier this year it cut 13 flight connections to Spain.
This time, the airline is cancelling 36 direct connections with regional airports in mainland Spain and the Canary Islands, as announced by the airline's CEO Eddie Wilson at a press conference held in Madrid on Wednesday September 3rd..
This entails a 41 percent reduction of its capacity at regional airports on the Iberian Peninsula (600,000 fewer seats) and a 10 percent reduction in the Canary Islands (400,000 fewer seats).
In addition, Ryanair will suspend all flights to the northwestern Galician city of Vigo starting January 1st 2026, and to Tenerife North Airport starting at the start of this year's winter season.
Furthermore, the airline is closing its two-aircraft base in another Galician city, Santiago de Compostela, resulting in a loss of $200 million in investment and an 80 percent reduction in seats.
Ryanair already completely withdrew from Valladolid and Jerez airports in January, impacting the two airports enormously.
READ MORE: Ryanair's exit leaves two Spanish airports in the doldrums
It is also reducing capacity at four other regional airports: Zaragoza (down 45 percent), Santander (down 38 percent), Asturias (down 16 percent), and Vitoria (down 2 percent).
In the Canary Islands, in addition to the surprising exit from Tenerife North, the Irish low-cost airline is also reducing capacity at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, and Lanzarote.
This bucks the trend of Ryanair pulling out only from smaller regional airports in parts of Spain which receive far fewer tourists.
EXCLUSIVE: The flight routes Ryanair will cut in Spain this winter
Ryanair’s decision comes in response to Spanish airport operator Aena's announcement that it will increase airport charges by 6.5 percent by 2026, to €11.03 per passenger, which Ryanair describes as "unjustifiable."
Spain and Europe’s most popular airline has been engaged in a war of words with Aena for some time over these airport fees, and it was the reason why it slashed 800,000 passenger seats on Spanish flight routes earlier this year.
This amounts to a reduction of almost 2 million seats on Ryanair flights to and from Spain in 2025.
Ryanair has attacked Aena and pointed out that there are Spanish airports that are almost 70 percent empty and has warned that this could rise to 80 percent with the elimination of Ryanair routes.
"We have 300 new planes to allocate to competitive airports, and we are taking them to other countries such as Morocco and Italy," said Eddie Wilson, who criticised the Spanish government for having an "anti-tourism policy".
Ironically, the vast majority of airports affected by Ryanair’s downsizing in Spain are places with few flights already, and the latest reduction weakens their travel links even further.
Ryanair has spoken out against the fact that Aena concentrates 85 percent of its traffic in 10 airports out of a network of 46 in Spain, claiming it does not want to invest in the rest.
The Ryanair CEO has predicted that "in the next five or ten years, many of these airports will close."
Once we have the details on the exact flight routes to and from Spain that Ryanair is axing, we will report on them, so stay tuned.
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