Crisis at Bremen Airport: Bye, bye, Bremen – Bye, bye, Ryanair

R yanair will no longer take off from Bremen Airport next summer. The previous connections to Malaga, Alicante, Zadar and also the daily flights to Mallorca and London have been canceled without replacement. This was reported to the airport by Ryanair on Tuesday evening. Only Mallorca is also served by other airlines. The other goals are completely eliminated for now.

The airport, which has been languishing for years, was just able to spread cautious optimism. At the end of September there was news that Lufthansa was now flying from Bremen to Frankfurt again - only once instead of five times a day, but at least: Bremen is once again connected to Germany's most important transfer hub. Lufthansa only announced the cancellation in May, so now there is a small re-entry.

Between the two decisions there were “discussions” between Bremen and Lufthansa. What exactly was agreed upon is of course very, very secret. The head of the supervisory board only states that there was “no discrimination for airlines” and that all offers of course apply to all airlines. Of course, not all airlines used the large aviation hubs.

Radio Bremen's regional magazine, "buten un binnen", quoted Ryanair's head of marketing when the agreement was announced at the end of September: What is now crucial is that the same conditions apply to all market participants at the Bremen location. We will look closely at the outcome of the negotiations. A week and a half later, further collaboration was canceled.

With the closure of Ryanair, 400,000 passengers will be lost, around a fifth of all passengers who fly via Bremen every year. The airport already had a big problem: it was only announced in September that it was currently carrying a deficit of 13 million euros - and was making a loss of 10 million euros every year. A savings manager should be hired. Self-administration insolvency was already planned.

Communication is left to Bremen's Economics and Ports Senator Kristina Vogt (Die Linke) and her State Councilor Kai Stührenberg, who is head of the airport's supervisory board. In the department you find: The Ryanair matter cannot be compared with the Lufthansa story.

The Irish airline had made “unfulfillable demands” and wanted to use Bremen Airport and its services almost free of charge. In the end, says Stührenberg, the airport would have had to pay an extra five euros for each passenger. “This is no longer a price negotiation, market power is being played out here, and the public sector should foot the bill,” criticizes Port Senator Vogt.

Ryanair has come a long way to accommodate Ryanair, says Vogt, “but at some point the limit is reached.” A planned conversation about how to proceed did not even take place: Ryanair had already canceled it at short notice on Monday. According to the authorities, the cancellation of Ryanair flights next summer will mean a loss of three million euros; Responding to the demands would have cost four million.

It is not new that Ryanair complains that location costs are too high; However, the airport has no control over most of them. Many duties and taxes are set at the federal level. The fact that airports like Dortmund, Berlin and Hamburg are now being penalized by the company is not only due to the conditions at these locations - this is how pressure is put on the federal government.

In fact, Bremen wrote to the federal government during negotiations with Lufthansa and asked them for a short-term reduction in air traffic control fees. The print-passing strategy also works when it comes from other providers.