Spanish competitors leap on opportunities created by Ryanair cuts

Ryanair’s reduction of flights to and from Spain and withdrawal from regional Spanish airports, due to what it denounced as “excessive” airport charges of 6.62%, appears to have created a window of opportunity for its competitors. IAG Group’s low-cost carrier, Vueling, has announced it will increase capacity from Santiago de Compostela by 15% compared to 2024, and from Tenerife Norte by 11%.

An extra Vueling aircraft will be laid on from mid-December to cater to 28 extra flights per week from Santiago de Compostela to various domestic destinations, including Barcelona, Malaga, Mallorca and Seville. Meanwhile, schedules from Tenerife Norte will grow by 25 flights per week, serving Alicante, Barcelona, and Valencia, among others. Overall, there will be over 160,000 more Vueling seats available over the winter season as a result of the move, which Jordi Pla, Vueling’s route planning director, described as part of the carrier’s “ambition to establish ourselves as the key airline in the domestic market, as well as in major corridors between Spain and Europe.”

That ambition comes as relations between Ryanair (Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers) and Spanish authorities have been increasingly strained, with officials accusing Ryanair of attempting to “blackmail” Spanish taxpayers into a reduction of airport fees. Against that background, Vueling’s step forward has been welcomed. As Spain’s Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente has put it: “When a king is dead, a king is crowned.”

But Vueling is not the only airline wanting to take advantage of Ryanair’s pullback. Its announcement comes alongside moves by Canarian flag carrier Binter to boost its Tenerife Norte seat availability by 33%, amid a promise that it is keeping an eye on “opportunities that may be interesting.” That’s on top of an extra five per cent Canarian capacity from Iberia Express (also IAG) – meaning at least 434,000 additional seats will be available this winter.

Those sums reduce the one million-seat shortfall left by Ryanair’s latest slashes to just 666,000, with Volotea and Wizz Air (which is adding 40 new Spanish departures to schedules through to March 2026) still expected to enter the fray. In a statement on X, Puente said: “low-cost airlines are rushing to take up the million seats left by Ryanair.”

Despite previous Ryanair cuts to its Spanish schedules in response to airport operator Aena’s fee increase, Aena has managed to smash its own previous best in August 2025, handling over 33.3 million passengers and a 3.1% increase in aircraft movements.