‘Maths for Dummies’ – Ryanair CEO O’Leary escalates dispute with Spanish Minister Puente over airport charges

Ryanair has dismissed claims that flight reductions in Spain are due to Boeing 737 MAX delivery delays.
O’Leary has directly blamed high airport fees and taxes set by Minister Puente for the capacity cuts.
Ryanair has confirmed a larger fleet and higher passenger traffic for summer 2026 compared to 2025.
The airline has offered to allocate new aircraft orders to Spain in exchange for lower fees.
Ryanair has used social media to reinforce its position on the dispute.

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has released a fiery video response, calling Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente a “dummy” and confirming he will mail him a copy of Basic Maths for Dummies. This escalation follows Minister Puente’s public claim that Ryanair’s flight reductions at regional Spanish airports resulted from Boeing 737 MAX delivery delays, a statement O’Leary has dismissed as completely false. The airline operates 648 aircraft in summer 2026, which is 29 more than in 2025, and expects total traffic to reach 216m passengers this season.

O’Leary attributed the capacity reductions directly to Minister Puente’s oversight of “high aviation taxes and uneconomic airport charges” at regional hubs that he described as “70pc empty”. He lambasted Puente’s assertion that Spain possesses the lowest aviation taxes in Europe, pointing to countries such as Ireland, Italy, Slovakia, and Sweden that are actively reducing or abolishing regional airport taxes. Ryanair has stated it is ready to allocate part of its upcoming 300 new aircraft orders to Spanish regions, but only if the Spanish government and airport operator AENA lower their fees.

Ryanair echoed O’Leary’s corporate pushback on social media platforms, mockingly closing its statements to the Transport Minister with the Spanish slang phrase “Chao pescao”. The airline has refuted the claims of aircraft shortages and has instead placed the blame for reduced competitiveness squarely on the regional fee structure. The dispute continues to highlight the tension between the airline’s expansion strategy and the fiscal policies of regional administrations.

Michael O’Leary shared, “Minister Puente is a dummy, and we are sending him a copy of Basic Maths for Dummies to help him understand his own airport fees.”