Tuesday, August 20, 2024 Ryanair urges Germany to cut soaring aviation taxes and fees, warning of a potential 1.5M seat reduction in Summer 2025, further damaging the country’s air travel recovery. Ryanair, Europe’s leading airline, today (August 20), urged the German government to immediately reduce its exorbitant air access costs by reversing the recent 24% hike in Aviation Tax, with the ultimate goal of abolishing it entirely, or risk losing an additional 10% of Ryanair’s German operations (equating to 1.
5 million seats) for Summer 2025. While other EU countries like Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Sweden are reducing or eliminating their Aviation Taxes, Germany’s tax, now 24% higher, stands as the second highest in the EU, negatively impacting the country’s air travel sector. Germany’s air travel recovery remains significantly behind the rest of Europe, reaching only 82% of pre-Covid levels – the lowest across the continent.
Country Recovery Govt Tax Spain 113% €0 Italy 111% €0 Poland 110% €0 Ireland 107% €0 Germany 82% €15.53 In addition to urging the elimination of the Aviation Tax, Ryanair has also called on the German government to promptly reduce the skyrocketing Air Traffic Control (ATC) charges, which have doubled since 2019, and to defer the planned 50% hike in Security Fees set for January 2025. These exorbitant government-imposed fees continue to harm Germany’s air travel, tourism, economy, and consumers, while merely supporting Lufthansa’s high-fare dominance.
If Germany refuses to lower these burdensome air travel taxes and fees, Ryanair plans to cut an additional 1.5 million seats from its German capacity for Summer 2025, reallocating this capacity to other lower-cost EU countries such as Italy, Poland, Spain, and Portugal. Ryanair’s CEO Eddie Wilson said: “Germany’s air travel market is broken and needs an urgent fix.
Germany has only recovered 82% of its pre-Covid traffic which is by far the worst performance of any EU State. As a result of these high Govt taxes/fees (the highest in Europe), and Lufthansa’s high-fare monopoly, German citizens/visitors now pay the highest air fares in Europe. Ryanair again calls on the German Govt.
to cut its very high aviation taxes and fees. If these very high taxes are not reduced, Ryanair will cut another 1.5m seats from its German capacity (-10%) for Summer 2025.
These reductions will further damage inbound tourism, and Germany’s post-Covid recovery, whilst other competitor EU States, with much lower or zero aviation taxes/fees, enjoy the benefit of traffic growth which is being switched from high cost uncompetitive Germany.”.
