Winter flight plans 2025: NRW airports under great pressure!

Winter flight plans 2025: NRW airports under great pressure!

The new winter flight schedules start at the airports in North Rhine-Westphalia on Sunday, October 29th. This brings both positive and negative changes, which vary depending on the location. The route network remains stable overall, but some airports are still under pressure.

The largest airport in North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf, has a lot planned. With around 130 destinations in 46 countries, the offer is being expanded with new connections from Eurowings to Dubai, Innsbruck and Beirut. People are also looking forward to more frequent flights to Dublin, Warsaw and Rome. In Dortmund, however, the situation is completely different: While the airport is growing to 34 destinations in 17 countries, both Eurowings and Ryanair are withdrawing completely, making the future of the location uncertain.

Cologne/Bonn and the challenges of aviation

There are also changes in Cologne/Bonn. Wizz Air is expanding the program with four new routes to Eastern Europe and Eurowings will increase the frequency to Dubai and also fly to Marsa Alam in Egypt. These developments could be a welcome change for travelers, but the situation remains tense.

Things look particularly critical for Ryanair customers. On October 15, 2023, the airline announced that it would be cutting over 800,000 seats and 24 routes at nine German airports. Ryanair justified this decision with high access costs and an unimplemented reduction in aviation tax of 24%. This results in a total capacity in Germany that will be below the level of winter 2024. This particularly affects the cities of Dortmund, Dresden and Leipzig, which are now left without a connection.

Air traffic in numbers

The situation in German air traffic is worrying: in 2023 the industry will only reach around 87 percent of the passenger volume of 2019. Lufthansa, for example, recorded a 15.6 percent decline in passenger kilometers compared to 2019. This shows how much the industry is still struggling after the pandemic-related restrictions.

But despite these difficulties, there are also bright spots. Demand for leisure travel is increasing, and the forecast predicts air traffic growth of around six percent in 2024 - albeit at a lower level than before the pandemic. Air travel in Germany is not only hampered by high taxes and fees, but also by the increase in online meetings, which prevents many business travelers from using planes for their trips.

Looking into the future

Developments in air transport are a mixed bag: on the one hand there are more expensive flights and reduced capacity, and on the other hand there is growing demand. Ryanair has made it clear that without comprehensive measures to reduce access costs, Germany could lag behind in European aviation. If the government heeded the call, Ryanair could even station 30 additional aircraft in Germany and create over 1,000 new jobs. This would not only be positive news for the airline, but also for many travelers and the economy as a whole.

Overall, it remains to be seen how the situation will develop at the various airports. The coming months could be decisive in determining whether the air traffic picture in Germany improves sustainably or whether we continue to have to expect reduced capacities and rising flight prices. The uncertainties surrounding Ryanair and the planned route cuts make it clear that the government still has a lot of work to do to get the aviation landscape in Germany back on track.

For more information about the changes and developments, you can read the reports from WDR, Ryanair and Statista track.