Ryanair has announced the cancellation of 12 routes across six countries as it closes its Thessaloniki base and cuts capacity at Athens airport.
The Irish low-cost carrier and its combative CEO, Michael O’Leary, are once again shaking up Europe’s low-cost tourism landscape, this time by withdrawing routes and reducing winter operations in Greece amid an ongoing dispute over airport charges and taxes. The move will reportedly remove around 700,000 seats from the market.
Ryanair has blamed the “German-run Fraport Greece monopoly and Athens Airport” for charging what it describes as “hopelessly uncompetitive costs”, and says this has resulted in a “devastating loss in off-peak winter connectivity”.
The cancelled routes are from Thessaloniki to Berlin, Chania, Frankfurt-Hahn, Gothenburg, Heraklion, Niederrhein, Poznań, Stockholm, Venice Treviso, Zagreb, Milan Malpensa and Paphos.
The airline has also withdrawn aircraft from Chania and Heraklion. However, Ryanair has suggested that it could resume operations at the closed bases and on the withdrawn routes after the 2026–27 winter season.
The airline is putting the blame squarely on Fraport Greece, accusing the airport operator of refusing to implement the Greek government’s November 2024 decision to reduce the Airport Development Fee (ADF) by 75%, from €12 to €3 per passenger. Ryanair had welcomed the measure at the time as a “wise” decision that would “directly stimulate year-round connectivity and tourism across Greece”.
It further alleges that Fraport has not only failed to pass on the reduction but has instead increased charges to levels that are now 66% above pre-pandemic rates, effectively pocketing the surcharge.
Ryanair also claims that Athens International Airport is set to raise charges again this winter.
“Consequently, Greek airports are no longer competitive in the off-peak shoulder and winter months, when the tourism industry’s reliance on low-fare connectivity is most acute,” the airline said in a statement.
The situation, Ryanair argues, has left it with “no choice” but to reallocate capacity to more competitive markets such as Albania, regional Italy, and Sweden, where airports have passed on savings linked to government tax reductions.
Tirana in particular has become a major new base for the airline, while Italy was successfully pressured by Ryanair and other carriers into scrapping parts of its “addizionale municipale” aviation tax.
Fraport Greece, which manages 14 airports across Greece as well as major European hubs linked to its parent company in Frankfurt, rejected the allegations, saying Ryanair’s decision was “exclusively related” to its commercial strategy and economic considerations.
“Any claims linking this decision to airport charges or the airport development fee imposed by the Greek state are entirely unfounded,” the company said.
The operator also stressed that it has invested more than €100 million in upgrading Thessaloniki airport.
Ryanair has warned that it could hold back broader expansion plans in Greece, including the launch of 50 new routes over the next five years, arguing that such growth “can only be delivered if airport charges are frozen and the 75% Airport Development Fee reduction is passed on to passengers at all airports”. Otherwise, it said, Greece risks missing out on future tourism investment.
Greece is far from the first European market in which Ryanair has engaged in war and conducted aggressive policies over airport costs and aviation taxes. Earlier this year, the airline announced cuts to routes across multiple European airports, blaming rising airport fees, air traffic control costs and government aviation taxes. These reductions affected routes across the Balkans, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain, impacting millions of travellers.
