Spanish Airport Row Escalates As Ryanair Scales Back Winter Flights

Ryanair says it plans to cut its winter 2025-26 capacity in Spain by more than one million seats, citing what it calls “excessive and uncompetitive” charges levied by airport operator Aena.

The Irish ULCC intends to close its Santiago Rosalía de Castro Airport base, cancel all flights to Vigo and Tenerife North, and keep its Valladolid and Jerez bases closed. Capacity will also be cut across Asturias, Santander, Zaragoza, Vitoria and the Canary Islands.

Overall, the reductions equate to a 41% reduction in capacity at regional airports—about 600,000 seats—and a 10% cut in the Canary Islands, or about 400,000 seats.

Ryanair had two aircraft based in Santiago and offered 12 routes during the winter 2024-25 season, according to OAG Schedules Analyzer data. The move intensifies Ryanair’s ongoing dispute with Aena over airport charges.

In July, Aena’s board approved a 6.62% increase in fees from March 2026, equal to 68 euro cents (79 U.S. cents) per passenger, which it says follows a formula mandated by Spanish regulators. Ryanair argues the increases are unjustified, given that Aena has reported record profits and that many regional airports remain underutilized.

“These cuts will further harm Spain's already vulnerable regional airports and will inevitably lead to a loss of investment, connectivity, tourism, and jobs in regional Spain, as many routes will become economically unviable,” a statement from Ryanair says. CEO Eddie Wilson adds that much of the carrier’s regional Spanish capacity will be moved to airports in countries with more interest in growing traffic, such as Italy, Morocco and Hungary.

“Aena and the Spanish government have an obligation to explain to the regions their long-term strategy for Spain's regional airports, which are now almost 70% empty, as their poor management is directly contributing to the loss of local jobs, connectivity and investment,” Wilson says.

Aena has issued a strongly worded rebuttal, dismissing Ryanair’s claims as misleading and politically motivated. In a statement, Aena Chairman and CEO Maurici Lucena accuses the airline of using “dishonesty” in its communications and of attempting to pressure governments for financial concessions.

“Ryanair’s communications and institutional relations policy is in permanent and deliberate conflict with objective facts and truthfulness,” Lucena says, adding the airline regularly threatens cuts across Europe to extract subsidies. He emphasizes that the proposed fee-per-passenger increase in 2026 follows a legally mandated formula, and argues the increase is negligible compared with fare increases Ryanair implemented over the past year.

Lucena also stresses that Aena’s charges remain among the lowest in Europe, that regional airports already benefit from heavily subsidized fees, and that the higher charges are necessary to fund Aena’s largest investment plan for airports in recent decades.

“For some time now, Ryanair has sought to take advantage of its high market share in Spain to transform this symbiotic relationship into one of vassalage, which will never be accepted by Aena, and which would seriously damage the functioning of the Spanish airport system,” Lucena says. “It is truly a pity that Ryanair’s communications and institutional relations policy appear to be governed by hypocrisy, rudeness and blackmail.”

According to Aena, the Spanish airport system handled nearly 90 million passengers between June and August, marking the busiest summer on record. The operator says airlines have scheduled 2.1% more seats for winter 2025-26 than the previous year. Despite the dispute, Ryanair remains Spain’s largest airline by capacity, accounting for 21.5% of all departure seats this summer, OAG data shows.

Although Ryanair has cut back in several Spanish regions—down 48.4% at Vigo, 22.3% at Santiago, 13.7% at Zaragoza and 15% at Asturias—it has expanded in others, with Alicante, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and Valencia among those seeing growth. Overall, Ryanair’s summer 2025 capacity in Spain grew 3.6% year-over-year.