Bergerac, Brive, Strasbourg and Vatry lost their presence to Ryanair this year. And the airline confirmed, without providing details, in its economics magazine Challenges that its withdrawal from France would continue. “We will leave several French regional airports this summer,” promised the low-cost airline’s commercial director.
“When you increase taxes by 180%, it makes these airports unviable for us,” explained Jason McGuinness in the magazine, criticizing sectoral tax increases.
The 2025 budget has actually introduced an increase in taxes on air travel since March, through a threefold increase of the “solidarity tax on air tickets” (TSBA). The surcharge is 4.77 euros per air ticket on domestic or European flights departing from France, and up to 120 euros per long-haul journey in business class.
Worth more than 850 million euros for the full year, 80% of TSBA proceeds are returned to the country’s general budget, the remainder is used to finance major road and rail infrastructure projects. Business flights were most affected by the increase: from 207.37 euros to 2,097.37 euros more per passenger.
“Unfair” and “ineffective”
While Parliament is currently reviewing the 2026 Finance Bill (PLF), the main association of aviation business stakeholders, EBAA France, is also urging elected officials to improve a system that is “unfair in its design, unequal in its application and ineffective in its results”.
The TSBA increase “shocks the French flag”, the association assured this week, citing a 21.8% drop in French business aviation activity in the third quarter, compared with a 4% increase in foreign carrier activity in the country.
The boss of Ryanair, Europe’s leading low-cost airline, Michael O’Leary, has threatened in an interview with Le Parisien to reduce its capacity in France “further” if the government decides to raise air taxes again, prompting an irritated response from the Transport Minister.
Government condemns “threat”
“You have this crazy situation when your government raises the solidarity tax on air tickets (TSBA), which goes from 2.63 euros to 7.40 euros per ticket” in March 2025, Michael O’Leary began, describing the increase as “unjustified” for “a sector that doesn’t make much money”.
He said he had proposed a plan to France to double annual traffic by 2030 “but only if the government removes taxes”. “If not, we have cheaper alternatives elsewhere (…) And if France’s response to this is to raise taxes again, then we will further reduce our capacity here,” he threatened.
“I do not tolerate methods like this,” answered Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot when asked in our column. “Dialogue, yes, but no threats,” he added, accusing Ryanair of irresponsibility for “doubling its profits in one year”. The minister, who privately said he was “silent” about the idea of making tax increases long-term in March, slammed Ryanair’s “violent” communications “to try to absolve themselves of their obligations”.
