Ryanair will scrap 20 destinations from Belgium this winter, cutting around 1.1 million seats and moving six aircraft to other countries, chief executive Michael O’Leary announced on Tuesday.
The decision follows a dispute over Belgium’s aviation tax, which is due to rise to €7 per ticket from 1 January, representing a 250% increase.
At Charleroi airport just outside of Brussels, Ryanair will reduce its fleet to 13 aircraft, with around 200 local jobs set to be cut. The airline CEO said pilots and cabin crew would not be made redundant but transferred to other countries.
The impact is already being felt at the airport, where 36 fixed-term contracts have not been renewed and a 12% drop in passenger numbers is expected.
According to newspaper La Libre Belgique, 13 routes will be withdrawn from Charleroi: Amman, Dubrovnik, Nîmes, Genoa, Katowice, Lublin, Newcastle, Oviedo, Poznań, Reggio Calabria, Sarajevo, Trapani and Warsaw.
At Brussels Airport in Zaventem, seven destinations will be scrapped, leaving Dublin as Ryanair’s only remaining route from the travel hub.
Tax dispute
O’Leary branded the planned aviation tax increase as a “failed and stupid initiative”, in an interview with media outlet Belga. The tax increase was presented as a way to boost public revenue during the autumn of 2025.
The Ryanair chief argued that taxing air travel “does not bring growth but simply shifts it elsewhere”, pointing to Sweden, Italy and Slovakia, which have abolished similar taxes.
The dispute over the aviation tax has been simmering for months. Ryanair had previously threatened to withdraw services in Belgium if the tax increased. At Charleroi airport, Ryanair flights accounts for around 80% of passenger traffic.
The federal government made a concession over the summer, reducing the planned tax from €10 to €7 per ticket. Wallonia also agreed to provide €30 million in relief for the airport, including €15 million in local taxes.
However, the concessions failed to change Ryanair’s decision.
Wallonia Minister-President Adrien Dolimont said at the time that he had “no intention of cowering at every one of their outbursts”. He accused O’Leary of frequently using disinformation in an attempt to dictate the airline’s commercial policy to national and regional authorities.
O’Leary said the airline could reconsider its position if Belgium reversed its tax policy. In that case, Ryanair would consider adding 100 destinations to its seven-year growth plan, potentially creating 1,000 jobs.
Ryanair shifts capacity to lower-cost countries
The cuts in Belgium form part of a wider strategy to move aircraft to markets the airline considers more competitive.
“We are moving our aircraft to countries that are competitive,” O’Leary said, adding that Belgium, France and Germany did not meet that description.
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera has listed 13 airports Ryanair has left or plans to leave between 2026 and 2027, including Clermont-Ferrand and Rodez in France, the Azores in Portugal and Bremen in Germany. The list covers different types of reductions, ranging from seasonal suspensions to permanent withdrawals.
Some departures are already complete. Ryanair ended all flights to the Portuguese Azores islands on 29 March, discontinuing six routes that had carried around 400,000 passengers annually. The airline cited airport charges and air navigation costs in Portugal.
Bremen is due to lose all Ryanair flights in April 2027, affecting around 500,000 seats annually. The airline has blamed airport charges, security costs and German taxation.
In Berlin, Ryanair will close its base of seven aircraft on October 24 and halve its winter flights, although it will continue to serve the German capital.
O’Leary warns of higher airfares
The Ryanair chief also warned that the conflict in the Middle East was driving up oil prices, with Brent crude closing at $109.86 (€97.8) a barrel on Friday.
“Belgium is set to experience the sharpest rise in airfares in its history,” he said.
According to Bloomberg, O’Leary also warned that Europe could face unprecedented increases over the next 12 months, saying: “Over the next 12 months, we will see the sharpest rise in airfares ever seen in Europe, I would even say in history.”
Airfares could rise by as much as 20% next year, he said.
EU institutions come under fire
O’Leary also criticised the European institutions in an interview with Euronews, attacking what he called “that ship of fools in the European Parliament”, which he accused of introducing ever more regulations that increase the cost of air travel.
He described European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as useless, adding that “Ursula von der Leyen is afraid to do anything except talk.”
The Ryanair chief also criticised environmental taxes that apply to intra-European flights but do not affect flights operated by American, Asian and Chinese airlines in the same way. He claimed those airlines account for more than half of European aviation emissions.
O’Leary called for a “fair and reasonable” tax on every flight taking off from or landing in Europe.
(This article has first been published by Virgule. AI translated with editing by Lucrezia Reale.)