There has been a flood of reactions to Ryanair’s threats to reduce passenger numbers at Brussels Airport and Brussels South Charleroi by 1 million. Is this a bluff, a negotiating tactic, or will the higher flight tax in Belgium indeed jeopardize Europe’s largest airline’s profit targets?
Whichever way you look at it, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has announced that airlines worldwide expect to reach the five-billion-passenger mark for the first time next year, airport tax or not.
‘Insane’ and ‘rash proposal’
Ryanair is threatening to significantly reduce its services in Belgium during next year’s winter season. According to the Irish low-budget airline, the total number of seats on offer would fall by 1 million (-22%) due to the cancellation of 13 routes at Charleroi Airport and seven at Brussels Airport.
Ryanair would also remove 5 of the 18 aircraft stationed at Brussels South Charleroi Airport. For the Hainaut airport, this means “a loss of 500 million euros in investments”, according to Ryanair.
All these cost-cutting plans are in response to the new increase in the federal air tax in 2027 (from €5 to €10) and the planned local airport tax in Charleroi of €3 per passenger. And that’s not all: Ryanair also warns that it will have to make even deeper cuts at Charleroi, starting in April 2026.
“The repeated increases in the harmful flight tax make Belgium completely uncompetitive compared to many other European countries, such as Sweden, Hungary, Italy, and Slovakia, where governments are abolishing flight taxes to stimulate traffic, tourism, and employment,” says Ryanair’s commercial director, Jason McGuinness.
Furthermore, he calls the tax plans of the Charleroi city council an “insane” and “rash proposal” that will force Ryanair to cut back even more on its activities. “Thousands of local jobs are at stake,” dixit McGuinness, who is calling on the federal government and Charleroi city council to abandon their plans.
Arm-wrestling between MR and PS
For the moment, politicians are not impressed by Ryanair’s threats, although this has led to a bit of arm-wrestling between the liberal MR and the socialist PS. Thomas Dermine, the socialist Mayor of Charleroi, argues that the tax his city wants to levy from January 1, which has not yet been voted on, is primarily aimed at the airport.
The airport generates 25 million euros in profit each year and has “external consequences in terms of noise, safety, traffic, and parking on public roads,” without the city receiving a single euro in return, he says. The tax would generate 15 million per year, an essential source of income for Charleroi’s struggling city coffers.
And not unimportant: recently, if you want to access the kiss & fly zone at Charleroi Airport to drop off family or friends for a flight, you now must pay a €3 access fee. The measure has been met with considerable criticism, and it is quite coincidental that the tax the city wants to levy is also €3.
But that as it may be, Walloon Prime Minister Adrien Dolimont (MR) points an accusing finger at the socialist mayor. “This tax serves only to fill the coffers because they are unwilling to make sufficient efforts to reduce expenditure. To claim that this would have no impact on passengers shows a total lack of insight.”
Dolimont also says that the Walloon government “will use all available means to stop the Dermine tax.” “If Ryanair removes five of its aircraft, 1,100 direct and indirect jobs (including 150 direct contracts at the airport) are likely to be affected, not to mention the potential loss of 100 million in revenue for the Belgian economy,” warned the liberal politician.
In response, Dermine argues that if the city does not tax the airport’s profit margins at the municipal level, it will be paid out entirely as dividends, 48.2% of which will go to an Italian group.
For 2025, this amounts to 9.2 million euros. Consequently, opposition to the tax by the Walloon Prime Minister, whose party voted in favor of doubling the flight tax at the federal level, has mainly benefited foreign shareholders at the expense of Charleroi’s legitimate financial interests.
Treats realistic or bluffing?
The question remains: how realistic are Ryanair’s threats, and what impact would they have? The airline relies on selling tickets at low prices. A ticket in the winter season, which costs an average of €30, will now be subject to a tax of €13. According to Ryanair, such additional costs deter passengers – currently, 11 million passengers travel to and from Belgium with Ryanair.
And it is reinforcing its threats to cut back in Belgium by reporting that several regional governments, the national government, and five airports abroad have already contacted them to propose taking over capacity.
Aviation economist Wouter Dewulf (Antwerp University) calls Ryanair’s drumbeat and fierce reaction ‘much ado about nothing.” “They raise a hue and cry, saying they are leaving, but in reality, it’s not that bad,” says Dewulf to vrt.news, who also points out that Charleroi is Ryanair’s most profitable base on the continent and that they are therefore not going to leave it like take.
That does not mean that Ryanair will not put its money where its mouth is. For example, it cut 800,000+ seats and 24 routes in Germany for winter 2025, citing “high access/tax cost.” But other airlines could fill the gap left by Ryanair. There’s already talk about Transavia – at Brussels Airport – picking up some of the slack.
Vox populi
And what does the vox populi say? “I don’t understand why such details are not regulated by Europe, so that the same flight tax applies at every airport,” says a reader in the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws. “Don’t allow Ryanair to play airports off against each other, because that’s what’s happening now.”
Others regret the tax and indeed call it an economic blunder that will lead to job losses. However, some readers also point to Ryanair’s “incomprehensible” business model and wonder, with an eye on the environment, when we will finally fly at cost price or what those 10 or 13 euros represent in the holiday budget.
Record number of passengers for 2026 expected
To answer that last question: not much, because according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), airlines worldwide expect to carry a record 5.2 billion passengers in 2026. That would be more than 4% better than this year, when the 5 billion passenger mark is unlikely to be reached.
Profits are also expected to set a record. Net earnings of 41 billion dollars, or 35 billion euros, are scheduled for 2026, compared to 39.5 billion dollars this year. This increase is driven by stable economic growth, lower inflation, a weaker dollar, and falling fuel costs, says IATA.
Europe posted the strongest financial performance in 2025, with low-cost carriers, such as Ryanair and easyJet, achieving double-digit growth. They also achieved better profit margins than other airlines.
