Ryanair plans to close Berlin Brandenburg base on 24 October 2026

Ryanair announced on 8 October 2026 that it would offer about 700,000 fewer seats in Germany in winter 2026/27 than in winter 2025/26, a reduction of around 10%. It said the Berlin base closure would cut its Berlin seat capacity by around 50% and end 12 routes: Bologna, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Marseille, Palermo, Pisa, Reggio Calabria, Tallinn, Thessaloniki, Trieste and Vilnius. The base closure does not necessarily end every Ryanair flight to Berlin, but it removes locally based aircraft and those routes.

Cost dispute

Ryanair says charges at BER have increased by more than 50% since 2019, with a further 10% increase announced for 2027 to 2029. Germany raised its Luftverkehrsabgabe air passenger tax by more than 20% between 2024 and 2026, Yahoo Finance reported. Ryanair had already stopped flying to Dresden, Leipzig and Dortmund over the past two years, and Aerospace Global News reported those airports remain closed to Ryanair in 2026.

In August 2024, Ryanair announced plans to reduce BER capacity by 20% from summer 2025, withdrawing two of nine aircraft and cancelling six routes to Brussels, Chania, Kaunas, Krakow, Luxembourg and Riga, FL360aero reported. The airline argues German costs leave it uncompetitive and points to airports elsewhere in Europe that are lowering access charges. Governments and airport operators counter that Ryanair uses capacity cuts to press for lower fees, Aerospace Global News reported.

Bremen and Hamburg

Bremen is among 13 airports Ryanair is exiting, Tovima reported. The airline plans to discontinue all flights to and from Bremen from April 2027, removing about 500,000 seats a year, according to FL360aero. Tovima lists the Bremen exit in a March 2027 round. Bremen Airport handled 1.99 million passengers in 2025. Chief commercial officer Jason McGuinness said higher airport taxes had "driven Bremen out of the market," Yahoo Finance reported. Hamburg will lose about 5% of Ryanair capacity in winter 2026/27, after a 60% cut over the past two years, FL360aero and Yahoo Finance reported.

German market

Aviation A2Z reported that Ryanair said Germany was at 88% of pre-COVID traffic. Frankfurt handled 63.2 million passengers in 2025, Munich 43.4 million and BER about 26 million, FL360aero reported. Ryanair had already cut 24 routes and almost 800,000 seats from its winter 2025/26 German schedule. It says abolishing the air passenger tax and halving access costs would let it base 30 more aircraft in Germany, carry 34 million passengers a year and create more than 1,000 jobs.