Ryanair to axe even more flights to Spain as airline CEO says ‘I’ll fly elsewhere’

Ryanair could be about to axe yet another million seats to Spain next summer.

The airline has already dropped two million seats from its schedule to the UK’s favourite holiday destination over the summer and this coming winter, but it seems its not finished yet.

It’s all down to a row over a 6.5% hike in airport charges from Aena, a state-owned Spanish operator, which Ryanair has refused to pay.

Chief executive of the airline, Michael O’Leary, has made his feelings on the matter abundantly clear, telling the Financial Times: ‘I am due back in Madrid in two weeks, I will probably announce another one million seats coming out next summer.

‘If the costs in regional Spain are too high, I will fly elsewhere. We are better off flying at the same cost to places such as Palma [on the island of Mallorca] than flying to Jerez.’

The company boss didn’t specify which airports would be targeted by the changes, but added that he had ‘no desire to serve’ the Spanish operator if the country’s government couldn’t convince it to renege on the increased costs – which Aena says amount to 59p per passenger coming into any Spanish airport.

The Irish airline has already halted winter flights to Santiago de Compostela and Vigo (both in the northwest), Valladolid (two-and-a-half hours northwest of Madrid), Jerez (just south of Seville), and Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

Of the million seats that have been cancelled from smaller airports, Michael O’Leary says half have been redirected to Malaga and Palma, while other seats have gone to Italian destinations.

After refusing to serve these regional airports, Ryanair was accused of ‘extortion’ by the Aena chair and chief executive Maurici Lucena, while Spain’s transport minister even accused the airline of ‘blackmail’.

It’s a major issue for Spain though, since the carrier transports more passengers to and from the country than any other company.

But Ryanair isn’t being put out by this row or the decreased number of seats – in fact, Michael O’Leary claims Ryanair’s bookings are ‘up 8% in a week’.

This also comes after the airline announced it was axing all services to Brive, Bergerac and Strasbourg, meaning 25 routes will be discontinued in France and 750,000 seats will be lost in France this winter.

Ryanair’s new baggage rules

The airline has long been making headlines for its controversial approach to customer service and unforgiving luggage allowance regulations.

Among these stories, new baggage rules were announced back in August and have been implemented as of the start of September.

Ryanair passengers can now bring slightly bigger bags on board. But, crucially, this isn’t the bag that fits in the overhead locker, rather the ‘personal item’ underseat bag that fits underneath your seat which you get free of charge.

And the size increase isn’t exactly huge. Previously, the underseat ‘personal item’ could be 40 x 20 x 25cm. The new rules will bring that up to 40 x 30 x 20cm.

That means you can add 10cm onto either the width, length or depth of your bag. But 5cm must also come off somewhere too.

Or, if you want to consider the change in terms of volume, it means you get four litres of extra space, which is roughly the size of two big milk bottles (the four pinters).

The sizing restrictions on overhead hand luggage and checked baggage have remained the same — and yes, you still have to pay for those.

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