Ryanair to axe 800,000 seats on flights to Europe

It follows cuts to flights in Spain last month

The low-cost airline announced the plans to axe 24 routes to and from Germany, a potential blow to many people planning on visiting the country's Christmas markets.

This will lead to around 800,000 seats being cut.

Nine German airports will be affected, including the major travel hubs of Berlin and Hamburg.

Other airports affected include:

• Baden-Württemberg
• Cologne
• Frankfurt-Hahn
• Dortmund
• Dresden
• Leipzig
• Memmingen

While dates of these axed flights are yet to be provided, a post on Ryanair's website said that tickets on flights to these location would not be available for the 2025 winter season.

It is still unsure if currently scheduled flights will be axed or not.

Ryanair blamed "exorbitant" air tax costs for the decision.

In a statement, the airline said that the German government is jeopardising "connectivity, jobs, and tourism" in the region by failing to address the issue.

Ryanair’s CMO, Dara Brady, said: "Germany’s air travel market is broken and needs an urgent fix.  Due to its excessive access costs, Germany has only recovered 88% of its pre-Covid traffic, which is by far the worst recovery of any major European market."

Brady claimed that the country would continue to see decreased traffic if the issue was not addressed.

The low-cost Irish airline has precedent in its black and white dealings with countries after cutting around one million seats last August (around 16 per cent of its flights) to Spain over similar rising fees with Spanish airport operator Aena.

It has also scaled back operations in Belgium.