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Ryanair is making a huge change to its 2025 schedule, and it’s not good news for the more than 17 million Brits who love a holiday to Spain.
Due to ‘unjustified’ price hikes, the airline will be scrapping or reducing routes to seven Spanish destinations.
It will be stopping all flights to and from:
- Jerez (Cádiz)
- Vallodolid
It will also reduce flights in and out of:
- Vigo
- Santiago de Compostela
- Zaragoza
- Santander
- Asturias
It is unclear at this point on which routes Ryanair plans to reduce its traffic.
The decision means 800,000 customers have had their flights cancelled completely, and equates to an 18% reduction in Ryanair’s operations.
CEO Eddie Wilson said in a statement that the change in schedule came down to Aena, Spain’s state-controlled airport operator, issuing ‘unjustified’ price hike in airport charges.
Airport charges are the fees that airlines pay to use the airport’s facilities. Aena had initially scaled back their charges during the pandemic, but Ryan say they’ve been increasing since.
Wilson said: ‘Aena’s excessive airport charges and lack of workable growth incentives continue to undermine Spain’s regional airports, limiting their growth and leaving vast swathes of airport’s capacity under utilised.’
Wilson continued to call out Aena for its decisions, claiming the operator is failing to ‘support Spain’s regional growth’ and is instead focusing on foreign investments in airports across the Caribbean, UK, and the Americas.
‘Aena’s refusal to incentivise airlines to use underutilised capacity at its regional airports has forced Ryanair to reallocate aircraft and capacity to more competitive European markets, such as Italy, Sweden, Croatia, Hungary, and Morocco, where governments are actively incentivising growth,’ he said.
However, Aena told The Independent that its average fee of €10.35 (£8.75) per passenger is ‘among the lowest in Europe.’
The seven routes Ryanair is cancelling or limiting flights in and out of hold a special place in the hearts of Europeans. Santiago de Compostela, for example, attracts over 400,000 pilgrim visitors each year.
This is because the city is seen as one of the most important places for Christianity in the world, as it is believed to be the burial site of one of Jesus Christ’s followers, Saint James the Apostle.
Since the 2020 pandemic, pilgrim visits have become increasingly more common, with just 54,144 making the trip that year, compared to 446,035 in 2023.
While less Holy, another route seeing cuts in Zaragoza. The city is also a popular destination, attracting over 1.1 million tourists each year thanks to its rich cultural history, gastronomic scene and multiple festivals.
As for Jerez, it hosts over one million tourists each year, with one of its most notable events being a race at the city’s track as part of the Spanish Grand Prix.
Despite the cuts, you are still able to visit other popular Spanish hotspots, including Barcelona, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and Seville.
And with summer less than six months away (yes, we’re counting down), if you book now, you can even nab a one-way flight to Barcelona in June for just £24.99.
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