seats

RYANAIR is axing 20 routes from two European airports this winter – including one route from a city in the UK.

The airline has said the increase in aviation tax has resulted in the cancellation of over one million seats.

From its winter 2026/2027 schedule, Ryanair will no longer fly certain routes to and from Brussels South Charleroi and Brussels Airport at Zaventem.

It will be withdrawing six of its aircraft from the two bases and relocating them to other European airports.

The UK that will be affected is between Newcastle and Brussels Charleroi.

Looking at its website, the route remans on sale up until January 22.

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The last outgoing flight is from Newcastle at 4.25pm with fares starting from £21.99.

The last inbound flight from Brussels to Newcastle is at 7.30pm with prices from £214.99.

At Brussels Airport in Zaventem, The Brussels Times reported that the only Ryanair route that will remain will be to Dublin.

By January 2027, the price of aviation tax will have risen by 50 percent going from €2 (£1.68) in January 2025 to €7 (£5.87) in January 2027.

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary called the measure a “failed and stupid initiative.”

According to reports, eight routes will be discontinued from Brussels Airport in Zaventem.

Meanwhile, 12 routes will be cut from Brussels South Charleroi Airport.

This comes after Ryanair recently announced it would be cancelling all flights to Bremen in Germany.

Currently, Ryanair offers daily flights from London Stansted to Bremen for as little as £15.

But in a new announcement, these will come to an end in April 2027.

On the Ryanair website, it appears tickets for the final flights to Bremen are scheduled for March 27, 2027.

Ryanair services daily direct flights on the route for just £15 but from April next year, layovers will now be required for those wanting to fly to fly from the UK to this city

Ryanair plans to cut all flights to a European airport next year. From April 2027, Europe’s biggest budget airline will no longer fly to Bremen in Germany.

This will axe around 500,000 seats. At present, Ryanair services daily flights on the route from London Stansted to Bremen for just £15. The airline’s website appears to have tickets for the final flights to Bremen scheduled for March 27, 2027.

Layovers will now be required for those wanting to fly to Bremen from the UK, as there will be no direct links after Ryanair stops providing flights on this route.

Ryanair previously announced it would be cancelling 24 routes to and from Germany, cutting 800,000 seats in total. Nine airports will be affected by the decision, affecting major cities and popular with tourist spots:

• Berlin
• Hamburg
• Memmingen
• Baden-Württemberg
• Cologne
• Frankfurt-Hahn
• Dortmund
• Dresden
• Leipzig

Earlier this year Ryanair said it will be reducing its flight schedule to and from Berlin by 50 per cent.

CEO Eddie Wilson subsequently said that Germany’s aviation market is “broken”. He also said it “needs an urgent fix.”

“As a result of these high government taxes/fees (the highest in Europe), and Lufthansa’s high-fare monopoly, German citizens/visitors now pay the highest air fares in Europe,” Mr Wilson said.

RYANAIR is cancelled all flights to a European airport next year, – which works out to half a million seats.

As of early 2027, the airline will no longer fly to the German city of Bremen.

Currently, Ryanair offers daily flights from London Stansted to Bremen for as little as £15.

But in a new announcement, these will come to an end in April 2027.

On the Ryanair website, it appears tickets for the final flights to Bremen are scheduled for March 27, 2027.

The German city is known for its maritime history and gothic look that some often say looks ‘fairytale-like’.

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With Ryanair withdrawing the route, there will be no direct links to Bremen from the UK.

Those wanting to visit the German city will have to take stopover flights which can take over double the time.

The shortest is with KLM, which has a stopover in Amsterdam and takes three hours and 20minutes.

Last year, Ryanair announced it would be dropping 24 routes to and from Germany, cutting nearly 800,000 seats in total.

It was revealed that nine airports would be affected, along with the plans of those wanting a winter break, and including major cities that are popular with tourists.

These are:

• Berlin
• Hamburg
• Memmingen
• Baden-Württemberg
• Cologne
• Frankfurt-Hahn
• Dortmund
• Dresden
• Leipzig

In April of this year, the airline confirmed it would be reducing its flight schedule to and from Berlin by 50 per cent.

Ryanair’s CEO Eddie Wilson said back in August: “Germany’s air travel market is broken and needs an urgent fix.

“As a result of these high government taxes/fees (the highest in Europe), and Lufthansa’s high-fare monopoly, German citizens/visitors now pay the highest air fares in Europe.”

EASYJET is the latest airline to cut flights from its winter schedule in order to manage fuel costs.

The airline in total has now cut almost 1.4million seats between October 2026 and March 2027.

EasyJet usually offers around 50million flights over the winter season.

But earlier this year it announced 700,000 flights would be axed from the schedule.

And now almost another 700,000 flights have been cut with latest axing meaning it’s had a reduction of two days’ worth of flying, according to Gurufocus.

Talking to the Financial Times, chief executive Kenton Jarvis explained that easyJet would be scaling back capacity over certain months so that it could avoid paying high fuel costs.

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Since the Iran War started in February, the cost of jet fuel has almost doubled.

Kenton Jarvis added that cutting capacity is something which is happening “across all competitors” and that it’s “no surprise” given the fuel costs.

Cutting capacity means that the airline can “reduce its use of more expensive fuel”.

It comes shortly after Ryanair announced it would be axing two million seats this winter due to rising fuel costs.

In a statement, the airline said “Subject to pricing and passenger demand, Ryanair expects this one-off winter schedule cut to reduce [November 2026 – March 2027 losses] by €70 million to €100 million (£85.8million).”

The two million seats works out to as many as 13,000 flights, although which routes will be affected is yet to be confirmed.

Ryanair boss, Michael O’Leary, also added that flight costs are likely to increase next year too.

Talking about 2027, Michael O’Leary said that flight prices were “only going one way”, which is “significantly upward”.

He added: “Fares for Ryanair passengers and every other passenger into the summer of 2027 are going to rise materially, I believe, because of significantly higher oil prices.”

Sun Travel has approached easyJet for comment.

Italy’s parliament is voting on Thursday on a new electoral law that would make it easier for election winners to form a majority government.

The law, proposed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, would award extra seats to any party or coalition that obtains more than 42 percent of seats in both parliamentary chambers, ensuring it holds a majority.

Meloni has framed the legislation as a route to greater stability in Italy’s political system, which has often been run by fragile coalition governments. Her critics, however, say the move is actually aimed at boosting her own chances in elections next year.

Here’s what we know about the electoral law and what it means for Italian politics:

What is Italy’s current electoral system?

Italy currently has a mixed electoral system for its 600-seat parliament, with about 36 percent of members of parliament elected directly in constituencies where the candidate with the most votes wins, and the rest decided through proportional representation.

The system, called “Rosatellum”, has been in place since 2017. It encourages coalition-building but can produce fractured results that make a governing majority hard to forge.

What would the new law change?

The new legislation would replace the mixed electoral system with a fully proportional one, as well as awarding extra seats to the party or coalition that wins the most seats if it secures at least 42 percent in both chambers.

The bonus would be as many as 70 seats in the 400-member Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, and up to 35 seats in the Senate, which has 200 elected members.

That means if a party or coalition meets the 42 percent share threshold in both chambers, it would have stronger power to govern. If no party or coalition meets the threshold, representation would be decided proportionally.

The new law would also force coalitions to announce their candidates for prime minister before the elections. Rado Fonda, head of research at Italian pollster SWG, told the Reuters news agency this provision could “prove problematic for the centre-left, potentially forcing an early leadership contest and exposing divisions that could weaken the bloc”.

Meloni, who currently leads the country’s longest-serving government since World War II, has said the reform will help stabilise the country rather than serve any one political group. “Whoever wins the elections will have the numbers to govern,” she said.

What stage is the legislation at?

The proposed law has already been approved by the Senate and must now undergo a final secret-ballot vote in the Chamber of Deputies.

Giovanni Orsina, a political scientist at Rome’s Luiss Guido Carli University, predicted that the law is “extremely likely” to pass.

If it fails, Meloni has said she will resign.

Why is the legislation controversial?

Opponents say the law is undemocratic because it could potentially grant a winning coalition a disproportionate level of power in parliament.

They also say that the legislation is intended to favour Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party (Fdl) is bracing for a tough election battle next year.

Riccardo Magi, head of the liberal More Europe party, who is on a hunger strike to protest the proposed reform, has called it an “anti-democratic law” that risks giving a minority bloc a huge majority in parliament.

Senator Matteo Renzi, who leads the Italia Viva party, has accused Italy’s governing coalition of pushing the electoral reform due to a fear of losing power.

Other critics have pointed out that the law would do little to stabilise the political system if no party or coalition reaches the 42 percent threshold in both chambers – a relatively high bar.

“This could produce a hung parliament, making post-electoral negotiations necessary to form a government,” Vincenzo Emanuele, a political science professor at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome and a member of the Italian Center for Electoral Studies (CISE), told Al Jazeera. “Even relatively small changes in coalition composition could make the difference between a clear parliamentary majority and a situation of political deadlock.”

When are Italy’s next elections, and what do the polls show?

Italy’s next general election must be held by December 22, 2027, although the government can call elections earlier if it wishes.

Currently, Meloni’s Fdl is polling ahead of all other parties, with 27 percent support, according to Politico’s polling aggregator. Her coalition partners, Lega and Forza Italia, have a combined 12 percent support, according to Politico, bringing the coalition share to 39 percent.

Fdl’s polling has been dented by support for a new far-right group, Futuro Nazionale (National Future), Reuters reported. It currently has 7.8 percent support, according to Italian polling institute SWG.

In opposition, the Democratic Party (PD) has 21 percent support, the Five Star Movement (M5S) has 12 percent and the Alliance of Greens and Left (AVS) has 6 percent, according to Politico. The Italy Viva (IV) and More Europe parties have 2 percent support each.

Emanuele said the current landscape means the proposed electoral law would not necessarily favour Meloni and could even benefit the opposition.

He said recent simulations by the CISE have shown that a centre-left coalition including the PD and M5S could potentially reach 44 percent of the vote, securing a “comfortable parliamentary majority”, though that could change if Meloni allies with National Future.

“The reform does not inherently favour the incumbent government: Its effects will depend crucially on how the competing coalitions are formed,” said Emanuele.

RYANAIR has announced that it is cutting more than half a million seats to two European countries before the end of this year.

The budget airline will scrap 550,000 seats from Estonia and Lithuania this winter, which means it will reduce its capacity to the two countries by around a quarter.

The airline has said that the decision comes after higher airport costs in the two countries.

According to Ryanair, airport charges in Lithuania have risen by 30 per cent since 2023.

In Estonia, on the other hand, there has been an increase in charges at Tallinn Airport.

It isn’t clear how many UK flights will be affected, but overall it works out to as many as 3,000 overall.

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Ryanair is now looking at increasing capacity in other destinations with lower airport charges.

For example, Riga in Latvia will gain around 40,000 seats this winter.

This means that the airline will operate 16 routes to Riga during this winter.

Ryanair has also decided to increase capacity on a number of other routes including Barcelona and Milan.

A number of other destinations will also lose Ryanair seats this winter.

Greece is set to lose around 700,000 seats and 12 routes.

In Belgium, there will be a reduction of one million seats and 20 routes.

And the airline has already axed flights from a number of airports across Spain, Portugal and Germany.

The news comes just days after the airline said that it plans to have 11 million seats across Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania by 2031 and increase its aircraft in the region from seven to 16.