Ryanair returns to the charge against Aena for the fees it has to pay for operating in Spanish airports, despite the fact that these remain frozen for 2025. The low-cost company has announced that it will stop operating this summer in Jerez and Valladolid and, in addition, will reduce its operations at five other airports: Vigo, Santiago, Zaragoza, Asturias and Santander.
The company assures in a statement that “it has further reduced its traffic in Spain for the summer of 2025, by 18% and losing 800,000 seats and 12 routes due to excessive rates.” He also attributes it to “the lack of effectiveness of the airport operator’s ‘incentive plans’,” which he describes as “monopolistic.” Plans that, in his opinion, “are completely ineffective in supporting the Government’s policy of growth of regional airports.”
Ryanair assumes that rates will not rise this year. “Despite the decision of the Spanish Government, in 2021, to freeze fees at airports until 2026, Aena has tried to increase fees every year and more markedly at Spanish regional airports, where traffic remains below from the levels prior to the Covid crisis,” he argues.
After these criticisms, “Ryanair will cease its operations in Jerez and Valladolid, will retire a plane based in Santiago”, which it claims represents 100 million dollars of investment, “and will reduce traffic by summer 2025 in five other regional airports: Vigo ( -61%), Santiago (-28%), Zaragoza (-20%), Asturias (-11%) and Santander (-5%). ”This loss,” he states, “will be devastating for regional connectivity, employment and tourism in Spain.”
“If Aena’s regional airports fail to be competitive compared to their European equivalents, air traffic will tend to move outside the Spanish regions,” the company says. Its CEO, Eddie Wilson, points out in the same statement that Aena “persists in unjustified rate increases and refuses to apply effective incentive systems to support the regional growth of Spain, giving priority to foreign investments in airports in the Caribbean. United Kingdom and America.”
Rates frozen by the CNMC
The rates, the amounts that Aena charges airlines for using its terminals, runways, gateways or security services, are frozen for 2025. This was decided a few weeks ago by the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC). Aena had proposed an increase of five cents, 0.54%, reaching 10.4 euros per passenger.
A year ago, the CNMC gave the green light to a 4% increase for the 2024 financial year. An increase that the Irish airline also criticizes. “Ryanair now asks the CNMC to cancel Aena’s rate increases for 2024, aligning them with the Government’s five-year rate freeze and to implement incentive packages that attract airlines to grow connectivity, tourism and employment at regional airports.” That is, he demands incentives because, he understands, otherwise, “Spain risks losing more capacity and investment to more competitive markets, leaving regional airports half empty while Spain’s competitors prosper.”
Aena’s response
Aena has responded to Ryanair, ensuring that the rate of “10.35 euros per passenger” is “one of the lowest in Europe” and that with that same figure, “Ryanair increased its activity in 2024 in Spanish airports by 8.7%. , so the airline transported 66 million passengers.”
“The arguments put forward today by the Irish airline” to “justify its readjustment of routes in Spanish airports is a mimetic replica of the commercial, communication and business policy that it is carrying out in all European countries,” Aena points out. through a statement. Also, according to the data available today in the systems managed by Aena and taking into account the figures offered this morning by the airline, its programming for the 2025 summer season at Spanish airports implies more seats available than in the same season. from the previous summer (2024)“, despite the cutbacks in the airports that have been reported.
Aena also argues that “at the regional airports, which the airline targets, there are commercial incentives sponsored by Aena, available to all airlines, which allow airport rates to drop to around 2 euros per passenger.” Meanwhile, at the airports where the airline has announced that it will continue to grow, which coincide with the largest and traditionally tourist airports in Spain, the rate that Ryanair will pay per passenger will be substantially higher than at regional airports.”
“Ryanair’s constant demands, devoid of any courtesy, regarding Aena’s airport fees” could be “illegal” and “considered by the European Union as state aid.” And it concludes that Ryanair uses “spurious arguments that do not correspond to the reality of airport fees in Spain, to confuse citizens and shamelessly put pressure on national and regional public institutions.”
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