Ryanair

Ryanair threatens to remove over 2 million seats from Brussels-Charleroi over growing taxes

Ryanair has issued its second threat to Belgium in a month.

Photo: Ryanair

Ryanair has said that it would reduce the number of seats from Brussels South Charleroi Airport (CRL) by 1.1 million in 2026 and a further 1.1 million in 2027, if the City of Charleroi and Belgium do not reverse their “silly taxes.”

In a statement on January 14, 2026, Ryanair stated that due to “silly” tax raises by the Charleroi City Council and the government of Belgium, it had plans to cut up to 2.2 million seats from CRL. 1.1 million would be removed in 2026, and a further 1.1 million would be cut in 2027.

The airline noted that at least five other European Union (EU) countries have “abolished” aviation taxes to facilitate growing air traffic.

“Belgium’s tax rises will now send traffic and jobs to other, more competitive, EU countries.”

As such, the low-cost carrier asked Bart De Wever, the Prime Minister of Belgium, to “reverse these silly tax rises,” which will only hurt the country’s competitiveness, costing Belgium “millions of passengers, thousands of flights, and thousands of jobs in tourism and support industries.”

How are passenger taxes changing?

According to the Irish carrier, the Charleroi City Council has announced plans to introduce a €3 ($3.50) charge for each passenger departing CRL, while the Belgian government said that it would increase per-passenger taxes from €2 ($2.33) to €10 ($11.65) from January 2027.

Previously, Belgium had two separate per-passenger tax brackets for departing flights: €5 ($5.83) for itineraries shorter than 500 kilometers (269.9 nautical miles), and €10 for departures toward destinations that are situated more than 500 km from the country.

Now, a standard €10 rate will apply to all passengers.

How has Ryanair reacted?

Michael O’Leary, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ryanair, reiterated that the taxes only harm Belgium’s competitiveness compared to other EU countries, where governments are slashing charges to facilitate air traffic growth.

“Ryanair, which is Belgium’s largest airline, carrying 11.6m passengers to/from Belgium in 2025, will now cut this figure to (10.6m) in 2026 (if Charleroi Council goes ahead with its €3 tax plan) and will cut further to 9.6m passengers in 2027, if the Belgium Govt doesn’t reverse this idiotic 5-fold increase in pax taxes.”

This is not the first time that Ryanair has complained about the rising taxes in Belgium. In December 2025, shortly after the Belgian government passed the country’s budget that included the provisions to have an umbrella tax for all departing flights, the airline threatened to remove 1 million seats, 5 aircraft based at CRL, and 20 routes from Belgium during the winter 2026/2027 season.

“This significant increase to access costs – which was already hiked up +150% in July (just 5 months ago) – makes Belgium completely uncompetitive compared to other EU markets […].”

According to Cirium’s Diio Mi, in terms of weekly departures and weekly departing seats from Belgium in January, Ryanair is just behind Brussels Airlines, which is the busiest airline in the country.

Over the past few months, Ryanair has called out either governments or airport operators in a variety of European countries for increasing their taxes and/or fees. The list includes Spain, Italy, the Baltic States, and others.