British tourist in his 60s collapses and dies in Spain while waiting to board Ryanair flight home

CSN accuses Ryanair of blackmailing the Spanish tax authorities and telling them to ‘calm’ down in the wake of flight cancellations.

Louise Brown January 20, 2025 Travel Leave a comment

SPAIN’S airport operator has accused Ryanair of ‘blackmail’ after last week’s announcement that it was cutting back flights to regional airports due to ‘excessive’ taxes.

Aena urged the Irish carrier to ‘calm down’ and claimed it wanted to use its airports for ‘free’.

The airline countered by saying that Aena has ‘repeatedly misled Ryanair and the Spanish people’ about its fares.

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The company announced this week that they will reduce their flights to Vigo and Santiago de Compostela as well, as well, as to Santander and Asturias.

It also announced that it would reduce the capacity of 12 routes by 18%, and eliminate 800,000 seats in comparison to last summer.

Ryanair said the decision is a result of excessive charges and ‘incentive plans’ from Aena which in turn is looking at other companies like Vueling and Air Nostrum to make up the service shortfall.

The Irish company accused the operator of refusing to ‘use its regional airport structure to support Spanish regional investment, instead prioritising investments in airports outside Spain’.

Aena said in statement that Ryanair should ‘abandon its threatening business and communication strategy, which it is very difficult not to interpret as blackmail’.

The operator explained that Aena’s airport charges are based on ‘Law 18/2014′ and are monitored by Spain’s competition regulator, the CNMC.

It also said that airport fees paid by any airline are just €2 per passenger at the regional airports ‘targeted’ by Ryanair.

Aena’s press release continued: “Ryanair, with its constant public pressure, has a simple intention: to use an extensive part of Spanish Airports for free.”

Aena continued, “Ryanair plans to transfer income, without any reason and in secret, directly to the pockets and shareholders of the airline.”

It also stated that Ryanair’s demands could ‘violate Law 18/2014 and, therefore, be illegal’.

Ryanair’s response to Aena was a long one.

This included a comment that regional facilities had not seen an increase in traffic and that Castellon, which is not managed by Aena, was the facility with the highest growth rate.

It countered suggestions about Spain’s having one of the lowest airport taxes in Europe and stated that Aena’s claim of €2 charged per passenger at regional airports was ‘clearly false’.

Ryanair also stated that Aena’s comments about it cutting back in Europe was untrue after it invested over €3 billion in European airports last year.

It said it had not opened a base in Spain since 2016 due to Aena’s ‘excessive charges’ and quoted the example of Ryanair having eight million passengers per year in Malaga, but not using Granada because their fees are too high.