Ryanair will cease all flights to the Azores starting March 2026, citing high airport fees and “government inaction,” the low-cost airline announced today.
An official source from ANA expressed surprise at Ryanair’s statement, noting that recent discussions with the Irish company aimed at expanding, not reducing, its flight offerings to Ponta Delgada.
The group, owned by the French company Vinci, emphasized that “the airport fees in the Azores, the lowest in the network,” remain unchanged for 2025, “and ANA has not proposed any increase for 2026.”
According to the concessionaire, “this real cost reduction (removing the effect of inflation) does not justify the airline’s change in stance.”
ANA further stated that it remains open to dialogue with Ryanair “to identify, beyond the company’s known communication stance, what the new contextual elements might be.”
The company also maintains close collaboration with the Regional Government of the Azores and tourism entities to ensure the best air connectivity to and from the region, “with Ryanair and other operators.”
The group reminded that routes operated by Ryanair between Ponta Delgada, Lisbon, and Porto are also served by SATA and TAP.
Ryanair announced today that “it will cancel all flights to/from the Azores starting March 29, 2026, due to high airport fees (set by the French airport monopoly ANA) and the inaction of the Portuguese Government, which increased air navigation fees by +120% after Covid and introduced a two-euro travel tax, at a time when other European Union (EU) states are abolishing travel taxes to ensure scarce capacity growth.”
The airline argues that “unfortunately, ANA’s monopoly has no plan to increase low-cost connectivity with the Azores,” adding that ANA “faces no competition in Portugal – which has allowed it to achieve monopolistic profits by increasing Portuguese airport fees without penalty – while competing airports in other EU countries are cutting fees to stimulate growth.”
Ryanair insists that the Government “must intervene and ensure” that national airports – “a critical part of the national infrastructure, especially in an island region like the Azores – serve the benefit of the Portuguese people and not a French airport monopoly.”
They claim that the competitiveness of more remote European regions like the Azores is being undermined by what they describe as the EU’s anti-competitive environmental charges.
“The EU’s ETS [Emissions Trading System] applies only to intra-European flights, while more polluting long-haul flights to the US and Middle East are excluded. Instead of making European aviation more competitive (by reducing the ETS), the EU has expanded the ETS to cover remote regions like the Azores – exempting non-EU competitors like Turkey and Morocco. Ryanair again calls on Ursula von der Leyen to ensure equal conditions for EU environmental charges, immediately bringing ETS charges to levels equivalent to CORSIA [the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation that applies to flights to and from third countries],” they note.
[News updated at 3:19 PM]
