Ryanair has announced it will cut numerous Berlin and Hamburg flights from its Summer 2026 schedule. At the same time, some smaller German airports look set to benefit from new routes.
Budget airline Ryanair presented its Summer 2026 schedule for Germany at a press conference in Berlin on Wednesday.
Overall, Ryanair said it would reinstate 300,000 seats and launch 14 new routes in Germany this Summer, following the German government’s decision to reduce aviation tax from July 2026 and freeze air traffic control (ATC) charges.
But the airline’s total capacity in Germany will still be around 220,000 seats lower than in Summer 2025, meaning fewer Ryanair flights overall than last year.
The cuts and additions are part of an ongoing dispute between Ryanair and German airports and authorities over airport fees, security charges and aviation taxes, with the airline concentrating growth at cheaper regional airports while reducing flights at what it calls “high-cost” locations.
Where is Ryanair cutting flights?
The budget airline is making the biggest cuts at Berlin Brandenburg Airport and Hamburg Airport.
At Berlin (BER), Ryanair will cut around 150,000 seats, equivalent to five percent of its capacity at the airport. Several popular routes will see sharp reductions in frequency:
- Valencia: down 43 percent
- Bergamo and Ibiza: each down 41 percent
- Manchester: down 34 percent
- Madrid: down 25 percent
READ ALSO: The new direct flights you can catch from Frankfurt this year
In Hamburg (HAM), Ryanair plans to cut 70,000 seats, representing a 20 percent reduction in capacity.
The airline has also reiterated that it will not return to Leipzig/Halle or Dresden, which it had previously dropped from its schedules, citing high costs and security charges at those airports.
Where is Ryanair adding flights?
While Berlin and Hamburg will see fewer Ryanair flights, several regional airports are gaining routes and capacity.
This amounts to 300,000 seats and 14 new routes from Cologne/Bonn, Niederrhein (Weeze), Memmingen and Bremen.
In addition, two new airports are being added to Ryanair’s German network: Saarbrücken and Friedrichshafen.
New routes being added include:
- Friedrichshafen to Alicante and Palma de Mallorca
- Saarbrücken to Alicante, Lamezia Terme and Trapani
- Nuremberg to Rabat
- Cologne to Rimini
- Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden to Amman, Bucharest, Rabat and Tirana
READ ALSO: LISTED – The direct flights from Nuremberg you can catch this summer
Ryanair’s negotiating tactics
In a recent press release, Ryanair said the cuts were driven by “excessive and uncompetitive airport charges”. The company has described Berlin as “the highest-cost airport” in it’s German network.
Ryanair’s Head of Communications for Germany, Marcel Pouchain Meyer, described the government’s decision to reduce the aviation tax and freeze ATC charges as “a welcome first step.”
But, he added, “Ryanair’s overall capacity in Germany for Summer 2026 remains 220,000 seats lower than Summer 2025, as high-cost airports like Berlin and Hamburg continue to fail to address their highly uncompetitive charges.”
German media have described this approach as a clear “carrot and stick” strategy: Airports that lower fees are ‘rewarded’ with new routes, while those that don’t face cuts. Ryanair has repeatedly announced flight reductions at various airports across Europe, always while publicly calling for tax cuts and lower charges.
In the past, this has included marketing agreements with regional airports and, in one case, subsidies that later had to be repaid after an EU ruling against illegal state aid at Frankfurt-Hahn Airport.
For travellers, this means that cheaper flights are increasingly being found at smaller regional airports.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thelocal.de
