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.
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?
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