{"id":62725,"date":"2025-09-14T01:44:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T01:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/62725\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T01:44:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T01:44:15","slug":"ryanair-threatens-to-cut-another-million-seats-to-spain-by-next-summer-as-airline-goes-all-in-against-spanish-airports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/62725\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryanair threatens to cut another million seats to Spain by next summer as airline goes all in against Spanish airports"},"content":{"rendered":"

RYANAIR has warned it could strip another one million seats from flights to Spain next summer if the country\u2019s airport operator does not back down on higher charges.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Irish carrier has already cancelled two million seats across the past summer and the coming winter, in protest at a 6.5% rise in fees imposed by state-owned operator Aena.<\/p>\n

Chief executive Michael O\u2019Leary told the Financial Times after the airline\u2019s annual meeting that he will return to Madrid in two weeks and \u201cwill probably announce another one million seats coming out next summer\u201d.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Ryanair threatens \u2018tourism disaster\u2019 for Spain as it directs two million seats to rival holiday destinations<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf the costs in regional Spain are too high, I will fly elsewhere,\u201d O\u2019Leary said. \u201cIf the Spanish government can\u2019t persuade Aena [to back down], then I\u2019ve no desire to serve them anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

The airline has already confirmed it will not operate winter flights to Santiago de Compostela, Vigo, Valladolid, Jerez and Tenerife North.\u00a0<\/p>\n

O\u2019Leary said that half a million of the seats pulled from regional airports had already been redirected to M\u00e1laga and Palma, with others shifted to Italy.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Vueling steps in to fill Ryanair\u2019s shoes and offers Spain\u2019s airports 1.5 million new seats<\/a><\/p>\n

Aena, which is majority state-owned and also controls London Luton, insists the increase amounts to just \u20ac0.68 per passenger.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Its chairman Maurici Lucena has accused Ryanair of \u201cextortion\u201d and called the airline \u201cimpertinent\u201d, arguing that it had applied to run more flights even while announcing cuts.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s transport minister has backed Aena, branding Ryanair\u2019s tactics \u201cblackmail\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Ryanair makes welcome changes to carry-on luggage size after bruising battle with Spain\u2019s airports<\/a><\/p>\n

Consumer affairs minister Pablo Bustinduy also criticised the European Commission after it confirmed that transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas would meet O\u2019Leary in Brussels.<\/p>\n

Spain is Ryanair\u2019s second-largest market after Italy, representing 18% of revenue last year. But O\u2019Leary said he is prepared to keep cutting capacity if charges remain unchanged.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is mad you have a country the size of Spain with one big monopoly,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Click here to read more Spain News<\/a> from The Olive Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RYANAIR has warned it could strip another one million seats from flights to Spain next summer if the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,43702,43703,623,383,43704,4319],"class_list":{"0":"post-62725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-news-spain","13":"tag-newspaper","14":"tag-ryanair","15":"tag-spain","16":"tag-the-olive-press","17":"tag-travel"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}