Rival funds airline Wizz Air has acknowledged that Spain’s airport charges aren’t as excessive as Ryanair has claimed throughout an ongoing battle with airport operators, opening the door to a number of the million seats cuts by the Irish airline being changed.
Low-cost airways are already swooping in to try to capitalise on Ryanair cutbacks in Spain amid the corporate’s confrontation with Aena, the nationwide airport operator.
The dominant Irish airline has been locked in a battle of phrases with Spanish airports, demanding that the Spanish authorities — which owns 51 % of Aena — decrease airport prices at regional airports. In response the corporate has diminished or eradicated operations at a number of airports throughout the nation, which means a lack of nearly one million seats within the Spanish market.
But Hungarian airline Wizz Air has introduced as much as 17 new routes and challenged the thought of Spanish charges being extreme, claiming that “the fares in Spain are aggressive with respect to different European bases.”
READ ALSO: Ryanair threatens to chop one million extra seats to Spain by summer time 2026
Andras Rado, Wizz Air’s communications director, informed the media that “charges can all the time be decrease in any nation, but when we improve our supply in Spain it signifies that for us they’re tremendous.”
The rival airline plans, the truth is, to “take benefit” of Ryanair’s cutbacks at smaller and regional airports, and to “improve frequencies and add new routes” as a part of its development plan within the nation.
As of September, the corporate operates in 16 Spanish airports and provides greater than 120 routes to fifteen nations, with Barcelona-El Prat airport being its essential market, with 26 routes to fifteen nations. The Barcelona-Bucharest route is the preferred of its choices.
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Wizz Air visitors in Spain is already rising. At Madrid-Barajas it has had greater than 5,000 flights thus far this yr (up 17.8 % in comparison with 2024) and greater than 1.1 million passengers transported (a 23.6 % improve).
READ ALSO: All the flight routes to Spain that Ryanair will axe by winter
Rado added that “Spain is a strategic marketplace for Wizz Air, and the expansion recorded lately is obvious proof of our dedication to the nation.”
“We wish to proceed to construct on our sturdy community, investing in additional environment friendly operations and providing passengers dependable and inexpensive journey choices tailor-made to their wants. We are right here to remain, to proceed rising and to be ever nearer to the Spanish folks.”
From subsequent winter (beginning on the finish of October and ending on the finish of March) Wizz Air has scheduled 17 new routes, together with from Belgrade, Skopje, and Gdansk to Madrid; from Bratislava, Warsaw and Larnaca (Cyprus) to Barcelona; from Tirana and Bratislava to Málaga, and from Iași (Romania) and Venice to Valencia.
In addition, the low-cost airline can also be planning new routes for subsequent summer time from Valencia, Bilbao, Barcelona and Madrid to London Luton, in addition to from Skopje and Gdansk to Madrid.
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Ryanair has been in a bitter dispute with Aena over airport charges and the Irish airline has mentioned that it may minimize an additional million seats on flights to Spain subsequent summer time if the Spanish airport operator would not scale back its prices.
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary made the warning in a latest interview with the Financial Times, through which he mentioned he would return to Madrid in two weeks to “in all probability” announce the elimination of one other million seats for summer time 2026.
This can be on high of the 800,000 seats on flights to Spain minimize this summer time and the million seats already cancelled for the upcoming winter season in protest towards Aena’s 6.5 % price improve.
The airline is demanding that the Spanish authorities — which owns 51 % of Aena — decrease airport prices at regional airports.
READ ALSO: Ryanair to scrap 36 flight routes to Spain
