Ryanair is cutting roughly half its services at Berlin Brandenburg Airport and closing its base there on October 24. (FILE 05/01/2025)Image: Jörg Carstensen/dpa/picture alliance
Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) expects passenger numbers to fall this year and next as Ryanair cuts its services, airport chief Aletta von Massenbach said.
The airport now forecasts 25.7 million passengers in 2026, down from 26.1 million last year, a decline von Massenbach described as the “Ryanair effect.”
Other airlines would partly offset Ryanair’s cuts, but would not fill the gap entirely, she said.
The airport is reviewing all costs and postponing investments in response.
“This is a heavy blow,” von Massenbach said of Ryanair’s decision to close its BER base, comprising seven aircraft and their crews, on October 24.
Europe’s largest budget airline will continue flying to Berlin but will cut roughly half its services, removing around 2.5 million seats a year, she said.
Ryanair has called BER “Europe’s most unsuccessful airport.” Von Massenbach said she understood the airline’s frustration over high costs in Germany, interpreting its criticism as primarily directed at the federal government.
“Everything they say against BER, they are saying against Germany,” she said.
The aviation industry has long criticized Germany’s comparatively high taxes and fees, arguing that they are a main reason air traffic has recovered more slowly from the pandemic than elsewhere in Europe.