European ultra low cost carrier Ryanair and the Spanish government are currently in a bit of a spat. Ryanair is used to going on the offense against regulators, but my goodness, Spanish regulators have just hit back in a way I’ve never seen before.
In this post:
Ryanair reducing flights to Spain over airport fees
It’s always hard to know what to make of Ryanair. On the one hand, the airline has done more to keep airfare in Europe low than any other airline, and that’s good for consumers. On the other hand, the airline also loves to attack regulators (countries, airports, air traffic controllers, etc.), find any loophole it can, and play the victim.
Ryanair is frequently at war with airports to keep fees low. In theory, low airport fees are a good thing, but there’s a balance needed, as airports also need critical infrastructure investments, and they have to be funded somehow.
Ryanair is currently furious with Aena, the airport operator in Spain, as it plans to increase airport fees by 6.62% in 2026, the largest increase in a decade. Ryanair is calling this a “tourism catastrophe,” and is massively scaling back its flights to Spain in winter.
The airline claims it has removed one million seats to Spain in its winter schedule, including closing one base, cutting all flights to three airports, reducing capacity at four other airports, and cutting a total of 36 nonstop flights. Ryanair claims that in regional Spain, airports are almost 70% empty.
Spain’s Aena issues unbelievable response to Ryanair
When Ryanair gets into disputes with regulators and airports, usually the airline is the party with harsh words, and the other party is a bit more reserved. Well, Maurici Lucena, the CEO of Aena, has issued a rebuttal to Ryanair, and it’s… yowzers. Just to clarify, Aena is the airport operator in Spain, and it’s 51% owned by the government.
Aena’s rebuttal is nearly 2,000 words, and frankly, the whole thing is worth a read. Let me just share some of the highlights. The letter starts with this opening, just to give you a sense of the tone:
It would be hard to find in contemporary business history another case such as Ryanair where the dissonance between a company’s operational excellence and the dishonesty of its communications policy is so striking.
Ryanair’s impertinence and uninhibited public demands on democratic governments in countries where it operates its flights with the aim of obtaining economic advantages, shed light upon two deep-rooted and unedifying characteristics of this airline company. The first is that Ryanair has a disturbingly plutocratic idea of the political system, i.e. it seeks to intimidate public opinion by slashing its flights, calls for the resignation of ministers from half of Europe and the president of the European Commission, mocks democratically elected politicians, and calls for laws to be changed in its favour because it believes that government decision-making should bend to the interests of the most economically powerful companies such as Ryanair, instead of protecting the “general interest”. The second characteristic is Ryanair’s communications and institutional relations policy, which is in permanent and deliberate conflict with objective facts and truthfulness.
Ryanair’s constant challenge of the Spanish regulatory framework for airports and Aena’s airport network model, considered a success story by experts worldwide, is not an isolated event. This is, in fact, Ryanair’s modus operandi in all the countries in which it is present, where it deploys constant public pressing of central and regional governments for short-term financial gain at the expense of taxpayers’ money and the long-term sustainability of the airport system.
The letter points out that Spain’s increase in airport fees amounts to an average of €0.68 per passenger, while Ryanair has raised fares over the past year by an average of 21%:
In accordance with the regulatory framework of Aena’s activity (its cornerstone being Act 18/2014) and the obligatory application of objective mathematical formulas, Aena has proposed an increase of €0.68 in airport tariffs in 2026. Everyone knows that a person’s decision of whether to take a plane or not does not depend on whether the ticket will cost 68 cents more next year, yet Ryanair insists again and again to the contrary, while it has itself brazenly raised its air fares in the last year by an average of 21%!
Then there’s this zinger (“no supernatural demonic force compels Ryanair…):
Aena sincerely considers it a matter of good fortune that Ryanair, given its operational quality and efficiency, is one of the major airlines at Spanish airports. Contrary to what Ryanair’s public statements imply, the airline is not obliged to use Aena airports: it uses them at its own will, and above all, because, in accordance with its emphatic objective of profit maximisation, it is in its interest to do so. No supernatural demonic force compels Ryanair to be one of Aena’s biggest customers and to sell its tickets to more than 60 million people travelling to and from Spain.
Bottom line
Ryanair isn’t happy with Spain over its decision to increase airport fees as of 2026, and is calling it a “tourism catastrophe.” The airline is slashing its schedule to Spain for winter, removing one million seats. Spain’s airport operator, meanwhile, argues that Ryanair is engaged in blackmail and extortion, and that there’s no supernatural demonic force compelling the airline to fly there.
We’re used to seeing Ryanair get into it with airport operators, but I’ve never seen a response quite like this.
What do you make of this feud between Ryanair and Aena?
Well, some in Spain have been complaining about over tourism, so at least they will be happy. Meanwhile, Ryanair hasn't cancelled my February flight out of BCN.
How about Spain first take control of Iberia and their consistent lack of regulations for honoring EU261 before we start on Ryanair. I understand Ryanair isn't the most honest airline but you also need to look at yourself before pointing fingers.
Spain has a far left communist government to the left of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. They go after all business and their ideology is extremely communist. You don't want to live in Spain especially if you have to pay taxes and deal with these angry communists who actually lost the elections but they keep control of power because it's a dictatorship. I live in Spain and I absolutely hate the Spanish government and the...
Spain has a far left communist government to the left of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. They go after all business and their ideology is extremely communist. You don't want to live in Spain especially if you have to pay taxes and deal with these angry communists who actually lost the elections but they keep control of power because it's a dictatorship. I live in Spain and I absolutely hate the Spanish government and the half of the Spanish people that are more communist than even Cubans or Soviets. This is why they don't care if they close all the airports because they would prefer you to take an electric scooter or a free subsidized bus or maybe an electric train run by windmills that don't have any backup power supply.
Jajajaja!
No.
Eres un gilipollas.
TL;DR:
Robert has no clue what communism is and he lives anywhere but Spain.
Ah yes, communism is when cost per passenger goes up by $0.68
It is refreshing to see that someone in Europe actually responds properly on such sort of bullying...
Good to see some pushback on a big corp, especially one as pushy and demanding of taxpayer resources as Ryanair. And honestly, Spain is looking at dialing back mass / low-end tourism. So no the worst outcome. It's Ryanair's loss if they pull back, it seems.
It is the winter schedule, a lot. If Spanish destinations see less traffic than in summer. While Ryanair may have increased the cuts a bit, a lot of it is the usual winter reshuffling of capacity combined taking the PR opportunities. They'll be back for the summer schedule when everyone has probably forgotten this little row.
Adios Ryanair from Spain. Good riddance. Go fly your aircraft somewhere else.
ryanair are evil. intentionally splitting up passengers on the same booking if they dont pay to pick a seat is absolutely scummy behavior.
if they dont like aena, dont fly there.
Classy - points out Ryanair's hypocrisy (and its operational excellence) without lowering itself to Ryanair-style insulting language.
As the French say “Bon débarras”. Who wants to fly RyanAir anyways?
If I was 18-25 again and could walk on a plane with just my phone and the clothes on my back and figure the rest out at my destination... me.
But wouldn't be more apropos to say that in espanol ?
...lol
205 million passengers last year. So please elaborate on the phrase “ who wants to fly them” ?
I’ve flown them a few times and never had any issues. A couple of tech delays and compensation paid within 10 days.
In fact the service is equal or better than that of most carriers in the US if you’re flying economy.
I also fly premium cabins on numerous other carriers. If Ryanair...
205 million passengers last year. So please elaborate on the phrase “ who wants to fly them” ?
I’ve flown them a few times and never had any issues. A couple of tech delays and compensation paid within 10 days.
In fact the service is equal or better than that of most carriers in the US if you’re flying economy.
I also fly premium cabins on numerous other carriers. If Ryanair suits me, I’ll book them. They won’t stop flying to Spain where they operate to/from around 40 destinations.
Sounds like they got ChatGPT to write it….
Why? They clearly didn't considering the amount of wrong English terms in the statement, a mistake LLM would not make.
The original statement is not in English, Ben is quoting what it probably is a Google Translation of it. Why would a Spanish public entity release a statement in English? Silly boomer.
Three things:
1. AENA regularly issues official statements in both English and Spanish; the original English can be found at: https://www.aena.es/en/press/statement-by-the-chairman-and-ceo-of-aena-maurici-lucena-on-the---announcement-by-ryanair.html
2. The fact that the statement is written in a complex, nuanced, and well-reasoned manner not entail that it was written with ChatGPT.
3. The sole instances of "wrong English" are one unnecessary comma, and the use of the word "eyelid" instead of "eyelash" in an idiomatic expression.
Three things:
1. AENA regularly issues official statements in both English and Spanish; the original English can be found at: https://www.aena.es/en/press/statement-by-the-chairman-and-ceo-of-aena-maurici-lucena-on-the---announcement-by-ryanair.html
2. The fact that the statement is written in a complex, nuanced, and well-reasoned manner not entail that it was written with ChatGPT.
3. The sole instances of "wrong English" are one unnecessary comma, and the use of the word "eyelid" instead of "eyelash" in an idiomatic expression.
@Lebl - Quite rich of you to accuse me of being a boomer while showing the most boomerish behaviour imaginable yourself :) It's 2025 and we live in the EU. English is our lingua franca and it's absolutely normal for companies to issue statements in it on matters of cross-state relevance, such as you know, a freaking Spanish airport operator on a dispute with an Irish airline. Duh. My local airport company of virtually no...
@Lebl - Quite rich of you to accuse me of being a boomer while showing the most boomerish behaviour imaginable yourself :) It's 2025 and we live in the EU. English is our lingua franca and it's absolutely normal for companies to issue statements in it on matters of cross-state relevance, such as you know, a freaking Spanish airport operator on a dispute with an Irish airline. Duh. My local airport company of virtually no significance that barely handles 2 milion pax a year translates every single press release into English because, well, they're a bloody airport company. It's not 80's anymore, as much as it may come as a surprise to ignorant Americans who think we live under a rock.
Google Translate basically runs on LLM these days, so again, it likely wouldn't have made mistakes we see in that statement. This was clearly produced by a human. There's literally nothing suggesting it was generated by an LLM, neither in Spanish nor in English.
With love, a millennial.
Spain's right wing Partido Popular also made remarks about AENA risking RyanAir's business over these fees and Lucena was having NONE of it, saying, in effect, that the raises are a product of PP's own laws.
https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/09/04/el-presidente-de-aena-responde-al-pp-sobre-la-subida-de-tasas-creo-que-no-saben-que-son-los-creadores-de-esa-ley-cadena-ser/
Love it! :-)
RyanAir can shove it!
Clearly written with AI
Doesn't make it less true, which company or government doesn't use AI at that point so no reason to think the point is less valid. No gotcha here in my opinion.
Who cares? It effectively slags off the nastiest airline c suite in the world.
The syntax is very Spanish. But it was probably translated by machine/AI.
AI wouldn't have made the mistakes AENA did in their statement. There are quite a few instances of wrong English terms being used, which suggests it's indeed written by a human.
Get used to it. AI is here and every company worth its salt is using it. The difference-maker is whether a company can use it intelligently, in tandem with expert human oversight.
Why? It's actually quite well written, considering it was probably translated from a Spanish language original.
Well said. Ryanair are an awful company, the worse of capitalist greed, and race to the bottom and should be given no grace whatsoever. This is how every government and regulator should respond to them. Well done aena!
Pure gold, no sympathy for RyanAir. Aena is correct. No one will miss a few low value British party tourists puking their way through Spain and RA went unopposed far to long. Good riddance, other countries should follow!
Careful now Chris, the “Puking British party tourists” are not the only passengers RyanAir ‘cattle truck’ into Spain, etc. Thousands of EU passengers use the airline too you know.
Ryanair is an Irish airline
Great pullout when you just redirect winter flights. I'd like to see them do the same on next year's summer schedule and see their competitors gorge themselves with Ryanair's market share and dividends.
I’d say that demonic subsumes supernatural in this context and renders the supernatural term superfluous. Otherwise pretty accurate.
All hail Aena! Thank you for standing up to the bullying tactics of O’Leary and Co.
"the airline is not obliged to use Aena airports"
so why are you even saying any of this
Your suggested alternative Spanish airports not under Spanish Government control would be appreciated betterbub?
If Ryanair doesn't want to fly somewhere, they're free not to. I don't understand the entire statement where they complain about Ryanair and then just say "we don't need their business". So what's even the point
They said if the passenger fee increase goes ahead they'd pull out. Lo and behold...
Let's be honest. We'd all love to own a business that carries such clout as Ryanair.
Of course everyone would love to profit from contractors essentially delivering free (or very sub-cost) services for political reasons. That's why it's important that airports stand up to that idea. That's not how free market is supposed to work.
May literally anyone else replace the million seat capacity cut so we can all move on from this annoying airline
Beautifully written rebuttal by Aena. Ryanair won't vacate the market, because there's plenty of players that would love to take up any slack.