Budget airline Ryanair has announced that it will no longer run flights from its Greek Thessaloniki base.

It will also reduce its capacity for Athens Airport during the upcoming winter season (2026), and plans to suspend operations at Crete airports, Chania and Heraklion, in the off-peak season too.

Overall, the site reads, these changes will result in the loss of about 700,000 inbound and outbound flights and 12 routes. 

The company’s chief commercial officer, Jason McGuinness, claimed that Ryanair had been responsible fo 90% of international capacity to Thessaloniki.

He added that they will be reallocating the aircraft no longer used for these locations to Albania, regional Italy and Sweden.

Why are Ryanair cutting so many seats in these airports?

Though jet fuel costs have ballooned since the US-Iran conflict, Ryanair cited another price hike here.

The company said on their site that “This devastating loss in off-peak winter connectivity is the direct result of the hopelessly uncompetitive costs charged at the German-run Fraport Greece monopoly and Athens Airport”. 

They stated that the Greek government reduced Airport Development Fees from €12 (£10.40) to €3 (£2.60) in 2024. Ryanair called this change “wise”.

But they said these savings haven’t been passed on to consumers and alleged that some Greek airports have “continued to increase charges, which are now +66% above their pre-Covid levels”.

They added that Athens airport will see fee hikes this winter, too.

In response, Fraport Greece has said, “Any claims linking this decision to airport charges or the airport development fee imposed by the Greek state are entirely unfounded”.

They added that it has invested millions to upgrade its Thessaloniki airport.

Which Ryanair routes are affected? 

The Crete airports: 

• Chania, and 
• Heraklion, 

will be shut entirely during the off-season of 2026 (winter), per Ryanair. 

And Ryanair said the following routes have also been canned entirely for now:

1. Thessaloniki to Berlin,
2. Thessaloniki to Frankfurt-H,
3. Thessaloniki to Gothenburg,
4. Thessaloniki to Niederrhein,
5. Thessaloniki to Poznan,
6. Thessaloniki to Stockholm,
7. Thessaloniki to Venice-T,
8. Thessaloniki to Zagreb,
9. Athens to Milan-M, 
10. Chania to Paphos, 
11. Thessaloniki to Heraklion,
12. Thessaloniki to Chania.

Will these routes be shut forever? 

We don’t know for sure.

Fraport Greece has called Ryanair an “important partner”. 

And Ryanair said that the flight and aircraft losses were “preventable” and have only shared these updates for winter 2026 so far.

They shared, “Regrettably, Greece will continue to miss out on investment opportunities, tourism and traffic development until Fraport Greece and Athens abandon their shameless practice of pocketing this tax cut.”

And McGuinness added, “There is an opportunity for Greece to secure significant year-round traffic growth; however, this investment can only be realised once the German-run Fraport Greece monopoly fully passes through the Greek Govt.’s sensible tax cut from November’24”. 

He continued to say that the aircraft lost to other countries as a result of this process will be moving to areas “where airports have passed on their Govt’s aviation tax savings”.