‘Hypocrisy’ and ‘blackmail’: Ryanair’s feud with Spain

Ryanair is locked in an “ongoing feud” with Spain’s airport operator, Aena, said The Telegraph. The Irish budget airline has “slashed” a million seats on flights to the country’s “key regional routes” this winter, stopping all journeys to Jerez, Tenerife North, Valladolid and Vigo.

‘Going nuclear’

The hostile move follows Aena’s proposed 6.62% fee increase, which Ryanair has branded “excessive”. Its response has been to “go nuclear” on a selection of routes, cutting its Spain schedule by 41%. This means shutting down its two-aircraft base in Santiago, and significantly reducing capacity at Asturias, Santander, Vitoria and Zaragoza.

During the “escalating public row”, Maurici Lucena, chair and chief executive of Aena, “hit out” at Ryanair’s boss, Michael O’Leary, accusing him of “lying continuously”, said the Financial Times. He told the paper that the decision had “nothing to do with Aena’s fees”, and claimed the budget airline is obscuring the “real underlying issue”, that it doesn’t want to “face the political and reputational cost of abandoning some regional airports”, and associated job losses in some cases.

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In a scathing statement on its website earlier this month, Aena accused Ryanair of “dishonesty and poor taste”, claiming the airline had distorted figures to make its message “more provocative”. It concluded that it is “truly a pity” that Ryanair’s communications policy “appears to be governed by hypocrisy, rudeness and blackmail”.

Ryanair “hit back at the allegations”, said The Mirror, urging Aena to “call our bluff” by reducing the fees at “Spain’s empty regional airports”. A spokesperson from the budget airline added that the company “always goes where costs are lower and will happily go back to regional Spain when they stop charging Madrid/ Barcelona prices. Until then it’s adiós Aena!”

Albania’s moment in the sun

Vueling is set to fill some of the gap, increasing capacity this year by 15% at Santiago and 11% at Tenerife North, said The Independent. The Spanish airline will also add another aircraft to its fleet from mid-December, running 28 additional weekly journeys from Santiago to cities like Barcelona, Madrid and Seville. Spain’s Minister of Transport, Oscar Puente, said in a statement on X that “low-cost airlines are rushing to take up the million seats left by Ryanair”.

What does the public spat mean for your next holiday? Unless you’re planning a getaway to a “fairly obscure” destination, there’s no need to worry as “core” tourist routes aren’t affected, said The Telegraph. Some Spanish regional destinations may become harder to reach from the UK, but other airlines are gradually “filling these slots”.

As for Ryanair, the budget airline is set to open new routes to airports where it says access costs are lower: in places such as Hungary, Croatia, Sweden and Morocco. Albania is “earmarked as a big growth area”, with the budget airline set to open a three-aircraft base in Tirana next year, which it hopes to expand. These plans are, however, dependent on Albania retaining its low access costs. If it doesn’t, the airline “has form in axing flights”.

Despite their tussle, Lucena told the Financial Times he was confident Spain would remain a “key market” for Ryanair. “Who needs who more? I don’t know. But they need us a lot, absolutely.”