Irish budget airline Ryanair will cut back its flights to Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) by around 20% from next summer due to high airport taxes, the company announced on Tuesday.
The number of Ryanair aircraft based in Berlin will be reduced from nine to seven, and six routes – the Belgian capital Brussels, Chania on the Greek island of Crete, Kaunas in Lithuania, Krakow in Poland, Luxembourg and the Latvian capital Riga – will be discontinued.
The exact timing of the fleet reduction and its impact on local employment have not yet been announced.
According to Eddie Wilson, Ryanair’s core operations manager, there are about 30 jobs on each plane.
Currently, Ryanair is the largest airline flying from BER and has surpassed EasyJet in market share.
Despite expanding services this summer and a 15% increase in passenger numbers last year, Ryanair’s future plans remain uncertain, particularly regarding the planned maintenance hangar at the airport.
The move echoes previous adjustments by airlines due to high costs. EasyJet also reduced its fleet at BER in 2022, resulting in the loss of around 200 jobs.
Wilson noted that air traffic at BER has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels, with passenger numbers still around 70% of what they were before the pandemic. High taxes and fees have been blamed for hampering growth and impacting airline supply.
In addition to Berlin, Ryanair also flies to Weeze, Cologne, Frankfurt-Hahn, Nuremberg, Baden and Memmingen. Whether there will be cutbacks at these locations is still the question.
The German airport association ADV warns that Germany risks losing its competitive advantage in air transport due to high costs.
Ralph Beisel, the association’s general manager, stressed that while other European airports are flourishing, regulations in Germany are hampering expansion and reducing the number of available flight connections.
