Ryanair closes its Berlin BER base, halving flights and cutting 2.5 million seats a year
Ryanair will close its base at Berlin Brandenburg Airport on 24 October, taking seven aircraft and their crews off the airport. Airport chief Aletta von Massenbach warned the move will cut passenger numbers in 2026 and 2027.
Base closure and capacity cuts
Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair will close its base at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) on 24 October, moving its seven aircraft and their crews elsewhere. The carrier will keep serving Berlin, but according to airport figures it will lose about half of its current offer, around 2.5 million seats a year. Ryanair is Europe's largest low-cost airline, and it is also taking 700,000 seats out of Berlin and Hamburg for the winter schedule alone. Ryanair is moving all seven BER aircraft to cheaper airports while still flying to the capital.
Airport chief Aletta von Massenbach responded in Berlin on Tuesday, 13 October, calling the decision a serious setback.
That is a heavy blow.
- Ryanair announces it will halve its offer at BER and calls the airport the most unsuccessful in Europe
- Ryanair closes its BER base, with seven aircraft and their crews
- Reduced Ryanair winter schedule starts to weigh on BER passenger numbers
Passenger forecasts cut
BER now expects 25.7 million passengers in 2026, down from 26.1 million in 2025 and below the roughly 26.5 million it had planned for this year. For 2027 it projects 25 to 25.2 million passengers, against an earlier expectation of up to 27 million. Von Massenbach called the effect the 'Ryanair effect', arguing that other airlines absorb part of the lost traffic but not all of it. Wizz Air and Lufthansa's subsidiary Eurowings have expanded their schedules, yet cannot fully compensate for the drop in Ryanair flights. The airport is currently at last year's level, but the reduced Ryanair winter schedule takes effect from November.
- 2019 (Tegel and Schönefeld combined)
- 35.65 million passengers
- 2025 actual
- 26.1 million passengers
- 2026 earlier plan
- 26.5 million passengers
- 2026 forecast
- 25.7 million passengers
Airport savings programme
BER plans to counter the losses with an operational savings drive, reviewing all personnel and material costs and postponing planned investments. Von Massenbach put it bluntly.
Everything is up for review.
The airport says it will keep investing where that lowers costs or opens new sources of revenue. It had already been lagging behind pre-pandemic traffic, handling 26.1 million passengers in 2025 against 35.65 million at Tegel and Schönefeld combined in 2019.
Ryanair's criticism of Berlin
Ryanair describes BER as 'the most unsuccessful airport in Europe' and criticises high airport charges and taxes. Von Massenbach said she understands the frustration over high costs in Germany, but argues the criticism is really aimed at the German state.
Everything they say against BER, they say against Germany.
As president of the airports association ADV, she has long argued that state-imposed costs for flying in Germany are too high. The aviation industry has also criticised high taxes and fees in Germany, which it sees as the main reason air traffic there has grown more weakly than in the rest of Europe since the Corona dip.
The Polish debate over CPK
The Polish outlet wPolityce.pl linked the Berlin news to the debate over Poland's Central Communication Port (CPK). Under the then-government led by Mateusz Morawiecki, the planned hub was meant to handle up to 100 million passengers a year. Rafał Trzaskowski had called that figure unrealistic, and in a May 2018 interview with Radio TOK FM he described the plan as gigantomania. That remark was often read as discouraging the CPK, on the argument that Berlin would compete with it.
