Ryanair cuts Malta link to Serbia’s Niš

Ryanair is making some key changes for the new year. The mega low-cost airline is set to cut some three million seats in 2026, including some major routes in Germany, Spain, Belgium, Portugal and Malta. It is also set to expand in others, launching new routes in the UK, Finland and Italy. 

A route between Malta and Niš, Serbia will be slashed this year, effectively stopped all Ryanair connections to the islands. In fact, Ryanair will reduce a number of routes across Bosnia and Serbia, including cutting weekly departing flights from Banja Luka, which will reduce to two weekly rotations on services to Vienna, Memmingen and Baden Baden. This is mainly to reallocate resources to areas with growing summer demand, like Croatia.

However, Malta will remain connected to Serbia via Belgrade, courtesy of Wizz Air.

In Germany, 24 routes are being cut to and from – a  reduction of almost 800,000 seats – for the 2026 schedule. Nine airports including Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Memmingen, Frankfurt-Hahn, Dresden, Dortmund and Leipzig will be affected. Ryanair cited high airport costs and aviation taxes as the main reasons. 

“Germany’s sky-high access costs are in stark contrast with countries such as Ireland, Spain and Poland which have no aviation taxes, or Sweden, Hungary and regional Italy, where aviation taxes are being scrapped alongside reduced access costs to boost traffic, tourism, jobs and economic recovery,” the airline said in a press release in October 2025.

Ryanair has also announced flight cuts to Spain next year. After cutting around one million seats for the winter 2025 schedule, the airline will follow up with a capacity reduction of about 1.2 million seats from its summer 2026 schedule for regional Spain.

France is not be saved from Ryanair cuts in 2026. The airline has already slashed 750,000 seats and 25 routes to France in winter 2025, after stopping all services to Bergerac, Brive and Strasbourg. This was mainly due to higher French airline taxes.

Ryanair will remove 20 routes and one million seats from Brussels and Charleroi for its winter 2026-2027 schedule.

Like other destinations, this is mainly due to a new Belgian aviation tax which will double the charge to €10 per passenger. Additionally, Charleroi might impose local taxes too.

Ryanair will slash all six of its routes to and from the Azores from the end of March next year, which will affect about 400,000 fliers per year. This will represent a cut of around 22 per cent in Ryanair’s Portuguese capacity, impacting key cities like Porto and Lisbon as well.

With airports charging higher taxes, it will be interesting to see which way other countries sway, clamping down on Ryanair’s offerings or slashing their fees to attract even more tourists in the post-pandemic surges.