aviation
Low-cost airline Ryanair gives up base in Frankfurt
Ryanair gives up the Frankfurt airport as a base again. Photo: Andreas Arnold / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The low-cost airline Ryanair is withdrawing from Frankfurt Airport due to excessive take-off and landing fees. In the first few years at the location, the Irish took advantage of discounts.
After five years, Europe’s largest low-cost airline, Ryanair, is giving up its base at Frankfurt Airport.
The five planes still stationed there are to be relocated to cheaper airports when the flight plan is changed on March 31, the Irish company announced on Friday. Nuremberg was given as an example, where two aircraft are to be stationed again.
Flights canceled
All flights from March 31st were canceled, as Ryanair announced. Passengers with tickets already booked would be notified in the coming days and refunded. On Friday, flights after the specified date were initially displayed on the Ryanair booking app. For the Frankfurt crews, Ryanair says it offers alternative jobs in its rapidly growing European network.
The company cited the increased take-off and landing fees at the largest German airport at the turn of the year as the reason for the withdrawal. “Instead of giving Ryanair an incentive to stay and grow, Frankfurt has decided to drive traffic and jobs away by increasing airport charges,” the statement said. Ryanair manager Jason McGuiness accused the federal government of having distorted competition with the billions in aid for Lufthansa.
Incentive program expired
Ryanair first came to Germany’s largest airport for the 2017 summer flight schedule, which as an international hub wanted to expand its range of low-cost European flights. Ryanair benefited from an incentive program run by the operator Fraport with reduced flight fees for new providers at the location. According to a Fraport spokesman, these incentives expired in 2020 for Ryanair.
The airport operator rejected the Irish criticism as unjustified. With an approved price increase of 4.3 percent, it would be very low in a European comparison of the turnstiles, said a spokesman. According to data from the industry service OAG, Ryanair had an average market share of around 3 percent in Frankfurt.
The MDax group Fraport, which is supported by the state of Hesse and the city of Frankfurt, now has to give more thought to the utilization of Pier G, which is almost completed, and which is explicitly tailored to the needs of direct flight providers such as Ryanair. Due to the Corona crisis, however, an opening was only planned for the entire Terminal 3 in 2026. After completion, Fraport intends to put Pier G into “dormant operation” in the first half of 2022.
The airline boss Eddie Wilson told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” that a return to Frankfurt would only be conceivable if Fraport consistently supported low-cost companies. Whether the involvement at the Hunsrück Hahn airport is increased again depends on the development of the insolvent airport. Ryanair founded its first German base there in 1999 and marketed it as “Frankfurt-Hahn”.
Forecast changed
The actually highly profitable Ryanair has lowered its forecast for the current financial year due to the ongoing Corona crisis. The company is now calculating with a deficit for the financial year running until the end of March 2022 of 250 million to 450 million euros, after the airline had recently assumed a minus of 100 to 200 million euros. In terms of passenger volume, the group now expects less than 100 million passengers instead of more than 100 million.