For some time now, Ryanair has been withdrawing from larger German airports. Sometimes it happens silently, sometimes with a lot of attention and occasionally with provocative media releases.

The Irish group is already no longer going to Munich, Stuttgart, Hanover, Düsseldorf and Hanover airports. In Frankfurt am Main, the base currently consisting of five Boeing 737-800s operated by Malta Air will be closed on March 31, 2022. However, the “withdrawal in installments” began much earlier and received the greatest public attention with the closure of the Laudamotion-Bases in Düsseldorf and Stuttgart.

Before the corona pandemic, the Lauda management team at the time repeatedly emphasized how well things would go in Germany. However, these words were quickly forgotten because the airport wanted cheaper fees and the staff should receive lower wages. In Stuttgart, the reason for the complete withdrawal was that not enough employees had agreed to the lower salaries. All were terminated and the Airbus planes were withdrawn.

The Lauda base in Düsseldorf was closed anyway

The situation was a little different in Düsseldorf. The majority of the Laudamotion employees at the time agreed to the “new salaries” and were also offered contracts for the successor Lauda Europe. That didn't help, because a few days later Ryanair announced the complete withdrawal from Düsseldorf. The reason was that the fees are supposed to be too high.

One argues similarly now in Frankfurt am Main. The fact is that the lowcoster has benefited from incentive programs at almost all airports, and in some cases even twice, because the flight numbers were changed to OE (Laudamotion) and later in some places they were made into FR (Ryanair) again. At some point, however, such discounts will expire and the competitor Wizz Air has already shown in Frankfurt am Main how you can react as a lowcoster: Goodbye with Ü.

While Ryanair works very well in Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen and at smaller airports in Germany, for example, you have never been completely happy with Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Munich, Hanover and Frankfurt am Main. There are various reasons for this, but it is also due to the fact that they did not want to fly to these airports for a long time because they were supposedly too expensive for the business model.

“Premium slots” are often not available

The result is that popular departure times for passengers are already assigned to other providers, such as Lufthansa. It is not the airports that are responsible for distributing the slots, but Fluko, a regulatory authority. The plan that Ryanair passengers do not care when they take off has simply not worked out at the larger airports in Germany. There are almost always alternatives. At smaller airports there are mostly not, so that Ryanair has in hand when to fly and when not.

The consequence of this is that the low-cost airline often has to offer particularly cheap tickets in order to be considered as an alternative by potential passengers due to the flight times and frequencies. Of course, Ryanair has succeeded quite well, but the offer is often well below the prime cost and often below the cost of the German aviation tax. This means that the lowcoster pays extra, unless the passengers make their ticket more expensive by buying extra services such as luggage transport. Or they dance to the counter without prior online check-in and the dimensions of the hand luggage do not fit either, then the cash register at Ryanair rings particularly loud.

Passengers avoid buying extra services

However, if the passengers come to terms with the regulations and if necessary buy the so-called priority package, which entitles them to take a trolley suitcase and a small bag, and do not buy anything else - not even on board -, the invoice is based on the basic ticket prices does not appear in the single-digit euro range. Then handling costs and the air traffic tax put a lot of pressure on the result.

An aspect that should not be underestimated, especially at Ryanair: Small airports, which in extreme cases only have the Irish lowcoster as their customer, tend to respond to extra requests and savings potential of the Irish. Larger airports such as Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart or Hanover, on the other hand, can live without the Ryanair flights. The slots are - apart from the current corona pandemic - in demand anyway and another user will be found.

This is exactly where the criticism from Ryanair and Wizz Air comes in: They demand that take-off and landing rights should only be protected if they are actually used in full. If not, then off to the regulator and ideally to the low-cost airlines. One hopes to get the proverbial “premium slots” at the larger airports. Only with these and a corresponding route offer could you really get on the nerves of top dogs like Lufthansa.

Got Linate take-off and landing rights, but not used them

Getting slots and then flying them should be the motto. A running gag at Ryanair is that a suitcase symbol with the IATA code LIN (Milan Linate) is shown on the boarding passes. The low-cost airline does not fly to this airport, even though they had take-off and landing rights last year could get hold of. Furthermore, the lowcoster rumbled for many years that one Linate slots. You were assigned it and then became quiet, but you didn't use it. The competitor Wizz Air uses the take-off and landing rights that are available in Linate could get hold of.

It is common knowledge that airlines would prefer not to pay anything at airports. This also includes network carriers and the airport managements have to negotiate with them on a regular basis. But especially with Wizz Air and Ryanair, every single cent counts and where possible you try to get “negative fees” through subsidies, tourism grants and the like.

An example of this are subsidies that were granted in Germany and Austria in the past, but some of which have been declared illegal. Those regions in which the airports at which Ryanair was just unsuccessful are located have enough alternatives and there is no reason for additional promotion of tourism. In remote areas, where there is hardly any air traffic that is not generated by low-cost airlines, the situation is different.