Ryanair slashes Berlin winter schedule, blaming high airport fees

BERLIN (Reuters) – Ryanair announced a 40% cut to its winter 2022 schedule to and from Berlin airport on Thursday based on pre-pandemic levels, blaming the decision on what it said were unjustified increases in charges for using the German capital’s airport.

The Irish budget airline will operate 19 fewer routes and 230 fewer weekly flights in and out of Berlin airport than it did in the winter of 2019, the company said in a statement.

“Higher airport costs in Berlin makes it more attractive for us to switch aircraft to lower cost alternatives elsewhere in regional Germany and Europe,” CEO Michael O’Leary told reporters in Berlin.

Airports in Berlin and Frankfurt “continue to impose excessive airport charges even while their traffic collapses”, O’Leary said, calling on the German government and the country’s major airports to lower airport charges and federal tax.

Ryanair already quit Frankfurt airport, Germany’s busiest, back in late March citing high airport fees.

O’Leary also blasted a 9 billion euro ($8.76 billion) state bailout for Germany’s Lufthansa during the pandemic, which has since been repaid, calling the national airline a “subsidy junkie” and saying the move had slowed the German market’s post-COVID recovery.

($1 = 1.0271 euros)

(Reporting by Klaus Lauer, Writing by Rachel More; Editing by Madeline Chambers)