At the end of the last year when Spanish airport authority Aena announced it was going to push ahead with increasing operating costs in order to fund a major investment programme, Ryanair responded by threatening base closures and reductions in seat capacity, labelling the charges “abusive”. Aena and the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility maintain that the tariffs remain among the most competitive in Europe and insist they will not bow to Ryanair’s demands or compromise Spain’s airport model to boost a single airline’s profits.
However, now Aena is going ahead with its plan, Ryanair has again slammed Aena’s proposed increases as ‘excessive’. The CEO of Ryanair, Eddie Wilson, is reported to have said: “Next winter we will make further cuts to regional airport services and I remind you that our total traffic in Spain for this summer will only grow by 0.5% compared to 9% in Italy, 11% in Morocco or 20% in Poland.”
He added: “Aena’s proposal to increase fares by 21% is regrettable, but not surprising, as this airport monopoly has a history of applying the highest fares at the expense of traffic development, especially at Spain’s regional airports, which are 70% empty. “Aena’s excessive proposal is the result of a fictitious consultation process during which airlines have spent the last four months providing detailed information, only for Aena to ignore these contributions in their entirety and announce that it would maintain the same ridiculous investment proposal of €13 billion that it announced last September – even before the ‘consultation’ began.”
These charges, collected from airlines for the use of terminals, runways, jet bridges, security controls, and other facilities, feed directly into ticket pricing and Ryanair has already cut a host of flights to Spain, leading to a loss of 1.2 million seats for this year. Despite reductions in flights to some Spanish airports, Ryanair has said that it is committed to Palma, one of its most important operating bases in Spain, however the airline is clearly not happy with Aena is going to introduce further flight reductions.
Aena proposes an average annual increase in the tariff of €0.43 per passenger, ‘which keeps Aena’s tariffs at very competitive levels and will allow the company to remain highly efficient’. These 0.43 cents will be adjusted according to the size of the airport, i.e. they will be lower in the case of medium and small airports, because Aena’s airport charges vary according to size. On Tuesday, at an extraordinary meeting, Aena’s Board of Directors approved the proposed Airport Regulation Document (DORA) for the period 2027-2031.
And the Spanish Tourism Board has rejected the 3.8% annual increase in airport fees announced by Aena and considers that this measure would directly increase the cost of air transport and have a negative impact on the competitiveness of Spain as a destination in an increasingly demanding international market. Its president, Juan Molas, points out that Spanish tourism does not need more burdens or ‘arbitrary’ price increases and insists that making Spain more expensive as a destination is not the way to ensure the future of the sector, as it ‘will work against our country as a destination in the competitive global market’.
In a statement, the Board calls on Aena to act responsibly and warns that an arbitrary increase in airport charges will only lead to a decline in the competitiveness of the country’s leading industry, tourism. In this context, Molas advocates the need to commit to policies that consolidate the connectivity and strength of the Spanish tourism model, adding that the experience of the last ten years shows that a prudent policy on airport charges contributes to strengthening both passenger traffic and the development of tourism.
Until now, Molas points out, this has been implemented through legislative restrictions, and the result has been sustained growth in air traffic and tourism-related economic activity, compatible with record profits for Aena. With this position, the Tourism Board thus supports the rejection expressed by the Airline Association (ALA), which highlights the possibility of completing the planned investments without increasing fees. Instead of a fee increase, airlines see a 4.9% reduction in air fees as viable.