Why Ryanair is withdrawing more and more from the German market | DW News 

Not a huge fan of Ryanair, but they grew a tiny Blackpool airport and put on regular flights to Belfast and Girona. The airport was busy and responded by putting the rent up. Ryanair almost immediately withdrew their planes and the airport closed down not long after.

I live in Stuttgart and used frequently Easyjet in pre-covid times. After covid airport expenses were driven up, and easyjet ultimately dropped all its connections from here. Within an year Eurowings (Lufthansa low-cost daughter company) replaced all those destinations. Of course for higher prices.

I'll tell this story one more time. Back in 1984 I wanted to fly to Barcelona to visit my girlfriend, I was 23. To do this I had to fly with the national airline carrier Aer lingus, initially to London and then a connecting flight to Barcelona. It took in total about 12 hours and cost almost 1000 euros in today's money. Thanks Ryanair for all you have done for flight travel.

The same happened in Estonia. There used to be loads of Ryanair flights going everywhere and then they hiked the fees at the airpot and Ryanair left. Now, to visit my parents in Portugal, there is just Lufthansa at silly o'clock for 500 euros round trip. The solution: I just take a boat to Stockholm and then take a Ryanair flight from there instead... still cheaper than Lufthansa, which is just a low-cost quality airline disguised as a premium.

1.) Ryanair complains in EVERY country that the airport fees are too high. Look up their arguments with the DAA in Ireland. 2.) Ryanair is NOT one of the "smaller players" in the market

There's a catch RyanAir's CEO Wilson doesn't mention: back from the cold war era, Germany did have quite a lot of military airbases, airfields and the like, operated by air forces from the US, Canada, the UK and many more countries. After the breakdown of the Soviet Union and Germany's re-unification, those air forces left Germany during the 1990ies, leaving behind a few dozen or so of runways and military airports. Arount the turn of the century, the nearby cities started enhancing those airfields to full-blown regional airports, paid with taxpayer's money, in the hope of fostering the local economy and becoming profitable in the near future. To attract airlines, they did dramatically subsidise any kind of fees, and especially RyanAir has been taking a profit from this. In parallel, established commercial airports did take a hit from those cheap, tax-subsidised competing airports. Similar things happened all across Europe, where many cities decided to enhance smaller regional airports, competing with established ones. Now 20 years later, most of those regional airports are still far from profitable, the desired economic impact is barely there and "the market" just needs to clean up. But back in 2014, the EU commission decided on for how long member states may subsidise airports: depending on the number of passengers per year, subsidies shall decrease over time and with passenger capacity, but be limited to 10 years, so the last subsidies will end by 2024. Without the extra Covid aids, most of those airports probably would've already been closed. Now check your Calendar: it's 2023. So those regional airports highly appreciated by low-cost carriers for their low fees and free services started to notice they'll need to stand on their own feet, or they'll file for bankruptcy and be forced to close. What happened over the past few months, after the covid aids run out: they started charging the necessary fees to keep them commercially afloat. And Germany had quite a few of those airports, most of them struggling being a commercially viable business. So far, none of those airports did close - and so there's a highly distributed market of smallish airports across the entire country, all of them struggling.

Really good discussion. Not a fan of Ryanair's product at all but between O'Leary and Wilson their PR firepower is unmatched - two really smart guys. Kudos to the interviewer too who held his own really well.

I live in Frankfurt and the Lufthansa prices have gone through the roof, at least 40% more expensive. Unfortunately some of the pre 2020 low-cost airlines have quit operating. It is impossible to find anything below 300 Euros during summer. I live next to the largest airport in Germany and I sometimes have to drive 130km to Hahn because the prices are often twice as low. I always thought it was mostly a demand and offer issue coming from the pandemic but that seems to be just a part of the problem. Hopefully the new low-cost terminal will solve the problem here.

I live in Hamburg, Germany. This is the second largest city in Germany. If you look at the flight connection here, it is ridiculous. As the speaker said, it is not always about holiday and vacation. If I need to fly from here to South Asia, I have to take a long train journey, to Frankrurt or bus to Amsterdam. No matter what the government says, the second largest city in Germany, does not even have a direct train connection to Amsterdam (regional airport hub).

Frankfurt 's was probably the worst airport I've been through... badly-designed signs, rude staff, bad food and I lost my connection because baggage handling took 2h 🤡 It must be even worse nowadays.

The main idea is to limit people from flying by rising prices, sadly. Lufthansa just takes the ultimate profit as lowcost pulls out people are "forced" to pay up if they want o fly.

How is Ryanair a smaller player? The CEO is ridiculous.

He choose a remarkable wording in the beginning when we said Ryanair was able to hold all its employees…how many people at Ryanair are actually employed by Ryanair and not by a sub ( or sub-sub) contractor? Who exactly is the German consumer? Does Ryanair now sell more tickets from airports close to the German border to prove Germans choose foreign airports as a cheap alternative? Also interesting he did not made the (unfortunately valid) counter argument by pointing out the structural inability of Deutsche Bahn to offer reasonable domestic alternatives.

went through Frankfurt airport once as a transit and it was a nightmare. Long waits, rude staff and lots of checking going on (even while having an EU passport). Not sure if the lack of competition is the result of this, however I guess that more competition would not hurt better service

Expat living in Berlin: - Flying home (to see family and friends) is incredibly expensive and often inconvenient. - Long distance trains are ridiculously expensive and most time non available at all thanks to DB monopoly. What exactly is one supposed to do? The impression is that Germany has a huuuge problem with competition when it comes it its national champions: Lufthansa, DB, DT, DP.... Frankly speaking after a bit more than one year here I am reconsidering my choice of coming here in the first place...

meanwhile lufthansa reports record earnings .....

So a ceo of a everything cheap company is complaining that airports maybe charge enough to pay their people a decent wage?! Do they even do that themselves?

Having recently had to transfer between international Lufthansa flights in Frankfurt, I can understand how German security are processing passengers far slower than elsewhere - for a 747 worth of passengers there was a single security lane open manually opening and checking everyone's carry on (which had already been checked at the point of origin) while many staff were just standing around laughing and chatting.

Ryanair isn't a "small player" by any kind of measurement. He just wants the taxpayer to subsidise airports in order to be able to offer ridiculously low fares. It's not a realistic price model when a flight from Germany to the South of France costs less than the bus ride to the airport. Their largest base in Germany, Airport Frankfurt-Hahn, went bankrupt because of their unsustainable fee structure. There is also absolutely no reason why Ryanair should pay lower fees at Frankfurt International than Lufthansa, as it did during the initial period, even though Lufthansa is by far the larger customer in Frankfurt. I feel absolutely no sympathy with Ryanair. BTW, there is also a good reason why Ryanair is flying 737 only, as Airbus isn't willing to sell their planes at dumping prices.

I live close to Frankfurt and I decided to take the high speed train to Basel in order to fly with easyjet to Sardinia. The same flight from Frankfurt would have been four times the price. I think that explains everything there is to know.

We need a better train network. Flying short distances is uneconomic and will not stay this cheap in future.

the problem i see is that germany wants to reduce the attractivness of flying in general so this might be a reason why they chose to do this, but if it just helps lufthansa but reduces competitiveness on the remaining market this most likely is the wrong approach. maybe a percentage based fee on the price of the ticket that gets invested in the railway system?

When I see how bad is the “new” Berlin airport, no wonder why prices went up and why everyone is pissed…

The Ryanair business model is to force regional airports to subsidize Ryanair under threat of pulling out of that specific airport!

Why have I the feeling that's not the passengers this guy is caring about.

Cheap airlines are cheap for a reason, Ryanair is one of the worst for hidden costs to their passengers!

Ryanair used to operate in Stuttgart and Frankfurt, which are pretty nice airports with decent public transport. Now, what remains in southern germany are only Memmingen, Baden-Baden and Nürnberg.

Germany needs to invest more in their trains, not in small regional airports

Love or hate Ryanair, they know a price fix when they see it

I am withdrawing from german market because I can't continue to abuse all social laws like I so used to do up until now and the politicians finally resisted my constant culture of fear and treat I imposed them for so many years.

Ryanair just left Frankfurt Main after the subsidies (from the Airport) has expired. They just didn't want to pay higher prices. By the end every customer has to pay for it, doesn't matter if choosing Ryanair or LH

Bit rich him cherry-picking Frankfurt as an example considering Ryanair doesn't even fly there.

This happened in Greece as well, Fraport a German company obtained a 40 year lease on 14 Greek airports with the possibility of extension and although alot of imrpovements have been made in the infustructure this has come at a cost of price hikes for all airlines and withdrawals of budget airlines operating directly from within the country. This is advantegeous to the domestic airlines such as Aegean and Sky Express but not for the overall consumer. If you take into account the price increases of ferry tickets as well the cost of travel has gone up substantially.

As a follow on from Covid, airport employees such as baggage handlers and security guards lost their jobs and moved on. The cost of living in DE has increased and tax is already burdensome, seriously affecting those who are single and on lower salaries. In 2021, a reasonable Security Office (S/O) was paid - on average - between 10 and 14 Euro/hr. In Frankfurt now, a place where it's already expensive to live, you need to pay a minimum of 18 Euros/hr to attract a basic S/O with a 34a qualification. Anything below that, and you are only attracting those who are generally unemployable/unsuitable in the security industry. On a recent flight from Frankfurt that I took, only two of the eight available security corridors were open, and the wait to clear the Security checkpoint before getting your flight was 1 hr 25 minutes. I was literally within a minute of missing my flight.

During COVID, Ryanair made it nearly impossible to give the money back. This company is shady af and I for one, hope they come down in pieces

Am not sure about the charges on airline companies but as I observed in past few years flight fares are increasing and at the same less flights from Berlin who want to travel international other than EU!

I traveled Ryanair once - now I know what a vacuum-packed sardine goes through....

The only thing that's excessive here are the extra charges Ryanair adds to almost everything.

I was amazed when I visited the "new" airport in Berlin which was so laklustre and dated looking as if they materials were all cheap low quality despite billions being spent on it. the only impressive airport is in Munich which looks like a dual use civilian - military airport.

cool, i always wondered what a 12 minute ryanair ad would look like! That's pretty embarrassing for DW

I feel like the interviewer could have done a better job at pushing back or being critical to his narrative. I don’t altogether disagree with him but the fact that trains exist also and that we definitely SHOULD be less reliant on airfare, combined with the fact that RyanAir is insanely profitable and could accept less profit margin, sort of makes me hesitant to jump on board with him, no pun intended.

he hates taxes doesn't he, that's why the company is headquartered in ireland

On the way from Munich to Geneva and Luthansa flight was late for an hour as no loaders were available and it was a small aircraft....the captain announced we will leave without our bags if ground crew doesn't turn up in 5 minutes...then they came and loaded our bags..1 and half hours late...so much for German rules

Never thought I’d hear those words in the same sentence “The German system is hopelessly inefficient” 😮

Ryanair kept employees during the pandemic? I thought they rent every one for gig work😂

For anyone who has ever gone through security at Berlin Brandenburg I assure you the security is the ABSOLUTE WORST AND THE SLOWEST in whole of Europe!!! So much for German efficiency… shameful and outrageous given those airport charges! 🤬

At Munich airport it tooks min of 2 hours to clear 289 pax from B777-300 , however baggage reclaim on belt were organized by the pax them selves

Lets talk about Ryanair now charging for a handbag

Ryanair have penalties for airports if they have to wait for services even if other airlines arrived earlier. The blackmailing tactic they use against small airport is despicable.

Meanwhile Ryanair charged elderly couple £110 to print out their tickets at airport (BBC News)

When the CEO of Europe's largest airline calls themselves a small player, you know what he's selling. I also don't get why an airline would cancel routes when they can just pass on the cost. Let the customer decide. If demand drops, then yes. But anouncing beforehand that you'll be cancelling routes shows that all you are thinking about is the image of your own airline. At the end of the day, flying has become to inexpensive and growth of the industry is not sustainable. If increasing the price lowers demand, that is not such a bad thing.

Ryanair 19,000 employees and 185 million passengers.Lufthansa 110,000 employees 100 million passengers

Ryanair is the only airline that offers service to medium-size towns. Former public airlines fly nowadays majorly only from their two or three hubs and exceptionally from another one or two industrial or very touristic cities. Already because of that reason, Ryanair has all my support as airline.

You Go RyanAir, Keep The Prices Down Please 🎰🚀

Ryanair is not the best airliner, but i am happy with them. What i pay is what i get. Ryanair is not comparable with Lufthansa, but what German government doing in collaboration with Lufthansa will only damage us, consumers. I live in Germany, and I love Germany, but in this moment, whole country is running full speed in wrong direction in all aspects of economy, not just air transport.

True, from Amsterdam to Faro 4x cheaper than from Frankfurt where i live. Even a stop in Lisbon with LH, TAP ect. while Adam - Faro is non-stop with Rainair

I wish I was a billionaire and could whinge about fees of things…

Would this be the same Ryanair that ripped off a couple £110 to provide two duplicate airline tickets? And the same Ryanair that is now whinging about unfair airport charges levied in Germany? Wow, the irony’s strong here.

Screw Ryanair. The second they have a monopoly on any route they charge just as much as non-budget carriers while retaining their contempt of passengers. I wish Poland would drive them out as well.

I live in Berlin. The Berlin Brandenburg Airport is a joke. Poorly staffed, hardly any shops, security staff seem to enjoy making your life a misery. On too of that many destinations were cancelled and prices drastically increased as per this CEOs comments regarding taxes.

They can just raise their prices to accommodate the airport fees.

I have interesting question : what is the difference in money spend in the airport by low cost airline passengers vs regular airlines ?

Living in Frankfurt thinking you can fly anywhere in world but can’t afford it anymore is a tragedy.

I agree with him. 40% of my last ticket was tax

Remember last year when Ryan Air abandoned Marseille when it refused to pay its share of employee taxes to the French govt? Bottom line, Ryan Air is profitable and yes the German govt is favoring its country’s carriers.

Doesn't Lufthansa pay the levies as well? If they do, how does that affect competitiveness? Is Ryanair trying to screw government taxes? Does Ryanair pay fair taxes otherwise? "Airpirts should be able to set their own prices" - ie big business should tell them what to charge, instead of governments?

Düsseldorf is the 3rd biggest airport in Germany and practically the only final destinations it serves is Mallorca and Antalya.

Ryan Air! U are lucky , not everyone has the luxury to take their taxes out of Germany

Would like to see DW news running Fact-Check after some of these interviews 🤔

Careful with CEOs and stuff. They always want, what is best for them (their company). Maybe it is better for the German economy as it is (Lufthansa, Eurowings might profit from the current situation). Never take big peoples words for granted. I dont know what would be better for our economy. Im not an economist nor an aviation expert. Only a (in the best case state funded) study could tell.

And this is the same Ryanair which registers their aircraft in Malta to avoid taxation and gives airports no choice but to charge consumers directly to cover costs because Ryanair refuses to pay for these services in order to achieve record profits.

There is a generalized understanding that we should cut CO2 emissions in every field possible. Either there's a new disrupting low-carbon flight technology coming up or business models Ryanair-alike will disappear, shifting those travel demands to rail.

Ryan Air is not a small player, might be an option for budget flying but not a small company at all.

Ryan air almost bankrupt an Italian airport some 10 years ago, as they even were asking money from that airport (instead of paying for)...

As long as the fees are applied evenly, what’s the big deal?

From the airline that charges a £50 fee if the passenger doesn't print their own boarding card. Seems they only have a problem with fees when they have to pay them ?

Ryanair has no extra value for the customer else than a lower price for some people. Better to focus on stability and quality of service. Ryanair is focused on taking airports and workers hostage. All to make more money as soon as possible.

He always argues that charges are too high in Germany, but so many other foreign airlines are still coming to our airports.

Interesting but I would have loved to have more context here. I'm guessing the main reasons are the new minimum wage and that airports have to hire personal again after firing people during COVID?

I havent noticed an increase of pricing in the last 4-5 years from West Germany to Spain. Until now Ryanair was able to keep it low. I love them.

He has a point, just tax airline CEOs more instead.

Apart from Ryanair never departed from Hanover - post-Covid you can only travel with a handful of the big players. Lufthansa is a joke concerning service. The prices are ridiculous high and the previously flourishing airport resembles a ghost town now. It was one of the main employers of the region and now many people lost their jobs because of the pandemic, but never re-employed or are paid way less wages now. It's quite sad to see the decline of regional airports.

He's 100% correct what he says about passenger processing through security in Germany and I well believe the differential mentioned by the Ryanair CEO. For a new airport BER is a disgrace. I queued 40 minutes to clear security there two weeks ago and previously had queued for nearly and hour. Not helped by staff moving at snails pace in all functions. That BER runway concept for security only works if you can be sure of making your time slot. BA for example still has manual check-in, whether travelling with checked bags or not. That is 1980s. In a brans new airport?! Far too many security clearance points are dedicated to the BER runway which causes gridlock at the regular clearance points. It's clearly noticeable Easyjet have reduced flights to and from Berlin. Glasgow used to have a daily flight. Now 'as I remember' it's down to 2-3 a week. Same Edinburgh.

I bet he flew in on Lufthansa

Ryanair, the biggest European airline, caring deeply for the reduced competitiveness for smaller carriers, like Ryanair 🤔

Security at the airport is ridiculous, each person has to get scan on an outdated machine. When they want to avoid queues, they ooen new security gates which raise airport taxes of course

Why is that an ad for Ryanair

Very good points. I can confirm my frustration as a Berlin resident and frequent flyer. It’s especially annoying when flying outside Europe where almost no direct flights are available because Lufthansa loves Frankfurt and Munich too much. Sad I cannot do more as a customer to “help” politics understand the problem.

"German systems are hopelessly inefficient!" Thank God. Finally someone said it out load on national news. Plain and Simple.

Coming back to mainstream media interviews where the interviewed person cannot speak without being interrupted is always disturbing. You forget how bad this is until you watch dedicated non-legacy-media channels and appreciate their calm style of interviewing

A guy that charges for breathing on the planes doesn't want to pay the fees at the airports 😂

Well I'd say that's because LCC's like RyanAir let more and more of their work getting handled by airport staff. I've seen many cases in which airport security had to help RyanAir customers with their baggage drop because there was no RyanAir staff in any of the dedicated RyanAir service points. Same goes for the large number of delayed flights, in which airport ground staff has to manage customers on behalf of RyanAir and gets no information from them. If airport staff is getting forced to handle additional work on top of their normal duties due to RyanAir saving money on every end, it's only natural to increase the price.

I'm calling BS on this. First of all, I have flown out of Frankfurt four times since after the pandemic. I never had to wait at a security checkpoint (well, at least no wait until it's my turn, I had to wait for a travel companion once who took a bit longer to get through). Then, Lufthansa have paid ALL their government money they got as a support during the pandemic back. And now that they are flying again, they are creating revenue and paying taxes in Germany. And Ryanair is the biggest airline in Berlin? Wow, I am impressed. (sarcastic slow clap). Yes, Berlin is the capital. But when it comes to traffic patterns, they have always been nomansland. BER was mostly for the prestige, since the capital needed some representative airport. Frankfurt, which has been #1 in Germany for who knows how long offers excellent connection between air travel, road travel and high-speed train travel. Berlin has... (cricket sounds). Berlin airport serves... well, travel demands from and to the greater area of Berlin. The complaint about the fees is probably just the gripe due to what happened when they still served Frankfurt. It went about like this: Fraport: "Hey Ryanair, you gotta pay the same fees as everyone else." Ryanair: "If we have to pay that, we're gonna leave." Fraport: "Okay, bye." They don't need to subsidize an Irish low-cost carrier to generate enough passengers. They get enough business without Ryanair, so why should they do business with someone who only lands there when they get discounts? Why shouldn't people from Nuremberg have connections? LOL. You're faster riding a train from Nuremberg to Frankfurt than you would be driving from Frankfurt to Hahn, where Ryanair used to have a big base. And seriously, should an airline that charges you for things that are absolutely necessary for your journey really complain about fees? Seriously, if I add the cost of getting from Frankfurt to some small airport where Ryanair flies and the transportation from the small airport they fly into to where I actually want to go, and then add all the fees like for checked bags or a seat that has enough legroom for me to even fit in it, I spend (almost) the same as I would spend for a Lufthansa flight. And then I'm with an airline that actually helps me out when things go wrong. Unlike someone from Ireland...

"smaller players like Ryanair"? Really? No, really? They are literally the biggest airline in Europe.

That'll be why it's nearly impossible to fly into Stuttgart nowadays then! I used to be able to fly from the UK into Stuttgart when I lived there for about £15 direct! I recently went back for a weekend, it cost £300 and I had to go through Zurich - Frankfurt - Stuttgart... Nightmare!

When ryanair pays its fair share of taxes, ill give a damn

Ryanair is not a small company. It’s the largest airline in the EU

Lived in Germany in for 5 years. Deutsche bahn is late 50% if the time (turning 8 hour trips into 12 hours because of missed connections)

For me as a business traveler Rayanair is an absolute no-go. Such horrible service, unpleasant departure times and uncomfortable seating are unreasonable if you have work meetings, even in Europe. AND, he complains about unfair structures! Didn't Ryanair exploit German taxpayers over many years by exessivly using regional government subsidies???

One of the worst airlines