BERLIN — Ryanair will close its Berlin operating base in October, halving its winter schedule to the German capital and relocating seven aircraft to other hubs. The move will reduce the airline's Berlin passenger numbers from 4.5 million to 2.2 million per year.

Starting in October, flights in and out of Berlin will be served by planes based at other airports. Staff at the Berlin facility are being offered transfers to other European bases.

"German aviation is broken. The government admits that it is uncompetitive, yet there is no strategy to cut aviation taxes or high airport fees – despite Ryanair warning that Germany would lose traffic, connectivity, jobs and trade," said Eddie Wilson, chief executive of Ryanair DAC.

Since 2019, Ryanair has closed its bases in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart and stopped all flights to Dresden, Leipzig and Dortmund. Those closures led to the loss of 13 aircraft from the affected bases.

The German trade union Verdi criticised the plans as purely profit-oriented corporate strategy. "The airline's employees had for too long been treated like disposable commodities while the company based its location decisions on short-term profit interests," said Dennis Dacke, head of Verdi's federal aviation division.

Berlin has direct trains to Amsterdam, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Berne, Stockholm and Paris, and a new daytime train service to Copenhagen starts this summer. With one change of train, passengers can travel from Berlin to Brussels, Bratislava, Budapest, Ljubljana and Zagreb.

"The demise of Ryanair at Berlin airport should mean an opportunity for more passengers to take trains to Berlin instead," said Jon Worth, a European railway policy analyst. "There is an opportunity for the railway industry here, if they are ready to seize it," he added.