- Ryanair will not offer flights from Leipzig/Halle or Dresden airports in summer 2027
- Talks with Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG ended without agreement
- Ryanair is withdrawing completely from Bremen Airport from April 2027
- The move is expected to cost Bremen around 400,000 passengers a year
- The German air traffic tax is around €13 per passenger for intra-European flights
Ryanair will not offer flights from Leipzig/Halle or Dresden airports in summer 2027 after talks with Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG ended without agreement. Both sides cited high location costs, including state-set and security charges, as the main obstacle. Discussions about a possible winter 2027/28 return remain open but without concrete commitments.
Ryanair is also withdrawing completely from Bremen Airport from April 2027 following a dispute over fees. Local authorities stated the airline’s demands would have left the airport making a loss on every passenger. The move is expected to cost Bremen around 400,000 passengers a year and about €3 million in revenue. The airport plans to appoint a restructuring manager to intensify cost-cutting. The budget airline is ending flights to six key destinations from Bremen, including London, Palma, Málaga, Alicante and Lamezia Terme.
Negotiations fell through due to Germany’s high location charges, aviation taxes and airport security fees. A Ryanair spokesperson pointed out that the German air traffic tax of around €13 per passenger for intra-European flights combined with additional security and airport fees makes operating these routes unviable when the airline’s average European ticket price sits around €46. Ryanair originally pulled out of Leipzig/Halle Airport and Dresden Airport by suspending operations ahead of the summer 2025 schedule.
Michael O’Leary told an A4E briefing in Brussels: It is part of a two or three year policy of gradually reducing capacity at high cost German airports, where we were paying high fees. In Germany security fees have doubled since COVID. Airport fees have doubled, despite the fact that many of these airports, Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen or empty, and declining. Berlin Airport, where they wasted many millions building the new terminal in Brandenburg, traffic in September was down about 23% on pre-pandemic. The German government doesn’t get it. They have the benefit of having very strong hubs in Frankfurt and Munich, which continue to grow strongly and successfully. But all of the other regional airports and Berlin are dying in Germany, under the failed policies of taxing airports and raising security fees. ATC fees in Germany are gone up nearly 3 bold, 300% since code. And we still get a terrible service from German ATC.
The reason why Mertz is so unpopular and this government has utterly failed, is that Germany is just not competitive anymore. And certainly, aviation is not competitive. We give an example of Slovakia, which is abolished aviation taxes, and reduced its ATCs by 50%. Sweden, which has the home of Greta Thunberg, has abolished aviation taxes, and our presence there isi growing strongly.
So our policy, for the moment, is take aircraft out of countries like France and Germany. We’re not leaving them, but we will switch capacity out of those countries where there’s high taxation in high airport feet, and switch them to those countries where there’s low taxation and lower airport fees.
I do believe, by the way, when I predict in three to four years’ time, Germany will be the fastest growing aviation market in Europe. It is a huge population, they have a high propensity to travel. But, until a new government in Germany scraps these stupid taxes, lowers the ridiculous ATC fees, and abolishes this mad security fee, German aviation is going to continue to struggle. This is mainly because it’s being spoiled by Carson, the of Frankfurt and Munich. But everywhere else in Germany is dying.
