IMAGO / Andreas Franke
Ryanair is taking off from BER. The Irish low-cost airline, one of the biggest airlines present in Berlin, announced today that it plans to close its BER base in October, withdrawing seven aircrafts and cutting half its routes. The airline had already massively reduced its offering post-pandemic due to increases in various airport fees.
It now projects to only handle 2.2 million passengers in 2027, less than half of what it originally planned. All flights to the city will be operated using aircraft based in foreign countries.
“German aviation is broken,” commented Eddie Wilson, head of Ryanair in Germany. High taxes and ever-increasing airport fees are making airlines fly away, while people living in Berlin and those wanting to visit have to bear the costs of the constant political disputes. BER is already very poorly connected to the world, which has a negative influence on the city’s tourism industry and is one of the major reasons it still hasn’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Further service cuts at BER are certain to only make the situation worse.