If you've booked Ryanair flights from a UK regional airport for next year, it's worth double-checking your itinerary. The Irish carrier — the biggest airline in the UK by scheduled seats — has been trimming its domestic network, cancelling all flights on 19 routes just as it adds new international ones for winter 2026/27 and summer 2027.
The most striking cut is Bergerac in southwest France. Ryanair has dropped services there from Bournemouth, Bristol, East Midlands, Edinburgh and Liverpool, leaving London Stansted as the only remaining UK link to the Dordogne airport. Other casualties include Birmingham to Stockholm and Paphos, Edinburgh to Madeira and Gothenburg, East Midlands to Prague and Berlin, London Luton to Rzeszów and Venice Treviso, Manchester to Madeira, and Stansted to both Bodrum and Dalaman.
A few routes haven't disappeared entirely — they've just swapped airports. Manchester's Warsaw flights now land at Modlin rather than Chopin, while Liverpool has done the reverse, dropping Modlin in favour of Chopin.
The Turkey exit is the biggest single story. Ryanair only launched Stansted flights to Bodrum and Dalaman in December 2024, then withdrew from the Turkish market entirely this year, also ending routes from Dublin and Bratislava. That's roughly 40 weekly flights gone. Local tourism bodies reportedly tried to save the routes, but the airline's expectations of support from Türkiye's tourism promotion agency weren't met. Complicating matters, Türkiye has no Open Skies agreement with the UK or EU, so carriers need explicit traffic rights to fly there.
Taxes are the other driving force. France hiked its aviation solidarity tax by around 180% in 2025 — from roughly €2.63 to €7.40 per short-haul economy passenger — and Ryanair responded by cutting French capacity. Belgium is next: a 250% increase in its passenger tax (from €2 to €7) has prompted the airline to pull two million seats from Brussels Charleroi and Brussels Airport across winter 2026/27 and summer 2027, including the Newcastle–Charleroi route.
More cuts are already on the calendar. All UK–Bremen flights end when the winter season closes on 27 March 2027, and Ryanair plans to halve its capacity at Berlin Brandenburg next summer, which could mean fewer weekly frequencies on UK routes to the German capital.
Why does this matter to holidaymakers? Because cheap fares on secondary routes are exactly the ones most vulnerable when taxes rise or subsidies dry up. If you fly from a regional UK airport — Bournemouth, East Midlands, Newcastle, Liverpool — it pays to book refundable or flexible options, and to check whether your 'Warsaw' or 'Brussels' flight now lands at an airport an hour from where you thought you were going. Stansted remains the safest bet for Bergerac-bound travellers, while anyone eyeing Turkey on a budget will need to look at other carriers.
