Ryanair will no longer serve Bergerac, Brive or Strasbourg from this winter. After Vatry last spring, three new airports are disappearing from the card of the low cost airline. The Irish company operated links to Scotland or Portugal there. In all, 25 lines will be removed in France for the winter season, which represents a 13 % reduction in its capacity in France, or 750,000 seats.
A brutal withdrawal from several regional airports
It is not a drop in activity that explains the end of these services, but a rant against the increase in the solidarity tax on plane tickets decided by the government this year, which increased from 2.63 to 7.4 euros for domestic or intra-European flights. An increase of 180 % qualified by Ryanair as ” astronomical tax And which would jeopardize the profitability of certain regional roads, already weakened in low season.
In a press release, Ryanair’s commercial director Jason McGuinness, deplores that France ” accuses such a delay compared to the rest of the European Union, with traffic still lower than the pre-Covid levels, due to excessive taxes and safety costs imposed by the government ».
And Ryanair does not stop there. The company warns that without a change of course, other deletions could follow by the summer of 2026. According to the company, French regional airports are likely to empty while investments will turn to more “welcoming” markets, such as Spain, Ireland, Sweden or Hungary, where taxes are reduced or deleted to encourage air traffic.
In filigree, it is a form of economic blackmail that Ryanair practices. If France renounces the increase in this tax, it promises a huge expansion plan: 2.5 billion dollars in investment, 25 new planes and a doubling of its traffic at 30 million annual passengers, accompanied by 750 job creations in the French regions. He therefore floats like a scent of blackmail in this decision by Ryanair.
The union of French airports had already struck the alarm on the effect of the tax on the attractiveness of the territory. Certain platforms such as Beauvais, Nîmes, Carcassonne or Béziers depend almost exclusively on low cost companies, which represent more than 99 % of their activity.
For the moment, the government has not reacted to Ryanair’s decision. But this tax, originally thought of to finance solidarity and ecological transition projects, is experienced as a real punishment by airlines for a long time, while the margins are very thin in the sector.
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