Anyone who has ever looked at their flight ticket receipt in depth will realize the cost includes both the base fare and a long list of taxes and fees that vary across countries and specific airports.
Often presented to customers as an airport tax that gets passed on to them, the landing fee is initially charged to airlines for a slot to land at a given time.
Major airports with thousands of daily flights have significantly higher landing fees than smaller regional ones outside the city center, but rising fees at regional airports can also make it unprofitable for airlines to fly into smaller cities without enough traffic.
Countries like Germany, Finland, and the United Arab Emirates are known to have particularly high fees due to local regulation and taxation laws.
With Germany significantly raising its aviation taxes in 2024, European low-cost airline Ryanair has, in turn, scaled back its service into the country and exited smaller markets such as Dresden, Leipzig, and Dortmund.
These airports have some of the highest taxes: what that means for travelers
Known for his fiery tongue and confrontational statements, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has spent the last year battling rising airport fees by threatening to stop flying into cities that do not lower them.
Earlier in the year, Ryanair canceled dozens of flights into Spain and exited airports such as Tenerife North, Jerez, and Vigo over a 6.5% airport fee increase put in place by Spanish airport operator Aena.
“I’m due back in Madrid in two weeks and will probably announce another million seats to be cancelled next summer,” O’Leary told the Financial Times last September. “If costs in regional Spain are too high, we’ll fly elsewhere.”
Related: An entire airport is ‘bankrupt in all but name’
Chile-based carrier LATAM recently decided it would no longer run a flight between Peru’s capital of Lima and Orlando after Jorge Chávez International Airport (LIM) introduced a new airport fee.
While mainstream airlines usually absorb the cost of airport taxes better than low-cost carriers, even Lufthansa has recently confirmed plans to cut more than 100 domestic flights across Germany over airport fees that CEO Carsten Spohr says have doubled since 2019.
Image source: Unsplash.
Those who fly into smaller airports often feel the brunt of high airport fees
“Without a reduction in the strain on the location, further cancellations will be unavoidable,” Spohr told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag at the start of October.
Less attentive travelers may not immediately notice which airports have higher airport fees, since the amount airlines pass on to customers is initially presented as a single price and is only later, at checkout, broken down into base fare and various fees and taxes.
More on travel:
- United Airlines CEO gives stark warning on Olympic Games
- Another regional airline cancels all flights, no refunds
- US government issues sudden warning on Switzerland travel
- Another country just issued a new visa requirement for visitors
Travelers will usually not bypass a given flight based on airport fees alone, but may later notice that ticket prices on low-cost airlines are close to matching what a mainstream carrier offers for given routes.
This further damages the low-cost model and sustainability of budget airlines, and can even lead to airlines pulling out of their regional airport entirely. Coupled with low traffic, some regional airports simply end up being too “expensive” for a given carrier.
Related: Major airline launches surprising flight between Las Vegas and Paris
#039expensive039 #airports #airlines #don039t #fly