Brits face dearer Spain flights as Ryanair weighs pay freezes, leaner crews and more AI

Passengers booking Spain flights for next year could end up paying up to 20 per cent more, as Ryanair looks at pay freezes, leaner crews and AI to soak up a €2 billion rise in its fuel bill. However, there’s a legal floor on how few cabin crew a plane can carry, and Ryanair are not exempt. 

Fares are the part passengers will feel

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has said European air fares could climb by as much as 20 per cent next year, with the airline expecting its fuel bill to jump by about €2 billion in the financial year to March 2028 as the Middle East conflict keeps oil prices high.

Travellers have been shielded so far because Ryanair bought about 80 per cent of its fuel through to March in advance. Average fares even fell 4 per cent in the six months to September, though O’Leary said they’ve been climbing since early August. That cushion thins out from the spring, with only around a quarter of the following year’s fuel covered.

Demand isn’t the problem, though. Ryanair’s planes were around 94 per cent full over the peak summer, and passengers rose 6 per cent to 125.8 million in the half-year, so the squeeze is coming from costs. Even so, profit dropped 15 per cent to €2.15 billion, and higher fares and slower growth won’t cover the whole increase.

Ryanair is weighing ‘lower crewing ratios’

Among the options Ryanair set out on Monday November 2 are temporary pay freezes, slower hiring and ‘lower crewing ratios’, which sounds like they’re saying there will be fewer cabin crew on each flight. However, the airline hasn’t said what it means by that, or which flights it would affect, and O’Leary tied it to Ryanair taking roughly half as many new aircraft over the next couple of years.

Either way, there’s a floor. EU safety rules require at least one cabin crew member for every 50 passenger seats (or part of 50) installed, so a standard 189-seat Boeing 737-800 needs at least four. Any cut on board can’t go below that.

The same sum explains an oddity in Ryanair’s newer Boeing 737 MAX 8200 jets, which it plans to fly with 197 seats even though the design allows up to 210. Four crew cover 200 seats, so 197 stays under the line, while 210 would need a fifth. Ryanair hasn’t said whether that’s why it chose 197.

Spain’s regional airports have already lost seats

Spain has seen Ryanair’s cost-cutting before. The airline cut 1.2 million seats from regional Spain for summer 2026 and axed every flight to and from Asturias, blaming increases in the fees charged by Aena and the government’s failure to stop them.

On Monday’s call, O’Leary said no other airline had filled that gap, despite what Spain’s transport minister had predicted, and that airports including Valladolid, Santiago de Compostela and Jerez are well down. Commercial chief Eddie Wilson said Ryanair is still growing at Málaga, Alicante and Palma.

AI is aimed at the office, not the cabin

Ryanair also wants to lean harder on AI for flight operations planning, back-office and support work, with O’Leary saying it has already boosted capacity by 4 per cent. Nothing the airline has said puts AI in the cabin or the cockpit.

Pay freezes could mean a bumpy summer

The freezes would apply to staff whose labour agreements come up for renewal next spring, with no rise on offer unless a new deal is signed. O’Leary reportedly named Spanish and Portuguese pilots among the groups due for review in April 2027.

Ryanair’s chief people officer Darren Hughes reportedly said on the call that a couple of staff groups would probably strike next summer without agreements. Unite, the union, said its multiyear pay deal covers 2027 and isn’t tied to company performance, adding that it expects the deal to be honoured and hasn’t been told of any proposals. No final decision has been made.

If strikes did cancel your flight, EU law is on your side. In a 2021 ruling, the EU’s top court found that a lawful strike by an airline’s own staff over pay isn’t an ‘extraordinary circumstance’, so passengers on cancelled flights can claim compensation. However, Ryanair has argued the opposite in UK courts over strikes in 2018.

For now, Ryanair says fares for the current winter quarter are trending only modestly ahead of last year, so the big rises are expected from next year. Anyone planning summer trips to Spain may want to compare prices before deciding when to book.