RYANAIR has launched its winter 2025 schedule for a popular Spanish destination – and it means more flights from the UK.
The budget airline has announced its winter schedule for Alicante, with 79 routes in total including 10 new destinations.
Alicante is known for having pretty beaches with clear waters and a famous nightlife scene.
And new flights to Alicante will include from Cardiff in Wales as well as Aberdeen in Scotland.
Three flights a week will operate from each airport to Alicante.
And extra flights will be added from Edinburgh to Scotland, a route already in place.
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As a result of the additions, Ryanair‘s winter capacity in Alicante will rise by 12 per cent.
However, the additions come as Ryanair has scrapped around two million seats to Spain in the past months.
Last month, the airline said that they would be cancelling all of their flights to Tenerife North, Vigo and Santiago.
Ryanair currently has two aircraft based at Santiago de Compostela and when Sun Travel looked at Ryanair’s booking platform, it found that the last flight to the destination before operations cease, departs on March 27, 2026.
For Tenerife North, no flights appear on the booking platform and all Ryanair flights to Vigo will stop in January 2026.
Both of the airline’s bases at Valladolid and Jerez will remain closed as well.
Just last week O’Leary also confirmed that a further 1.2million seats would be axed to Spain next summer, yet the airports that will be impacted have not been revealed yet.
The flurry of cancellations come as the airline disagrees with current airport tariffs in Spain.
AENA, which owns and operates 46 airports across Spain, recently announced that airport charges would increase by 6.5 per cent at the start of 2026, marking the highest rise in a decade.
The charges are for airlines’ use of airports and services at them, such as using terminals, runways, security and baggage handling.
Last week, O’Leary said: “AENA and its major shareholder, the Spanish Govt, continue to harm regional traffic growth, tourism and jobs in Spain through high airport fees and unjustified price increases.
“AENA should be lowering airport fees at underused Regional airports, but instead they plan to increase them by seven per cent, the highest fee increase for over a decade.
“The Spanish Govt has failed to stimulate Regional tourism and jobs, as it continues to protect the Aena Monopoly’s high fee operations.
“We regret that these fee increases make Regional Spanish airports uncompetitive, and this is why Ryanair is switching 1.2m more seats away from Regional airports in Spain in S2026, to some of Spain’s bigger airports, but mainly to lower-cost competitor airports in Italy, Morocco, Croatia, Sweden, and Hungary.”
It is believed that AENA is implementing the increased tariffs to fund investments in its airports.
This includes Malaga Airport, which is set to undergo a £1.3billion multi-year expansion project which will include making the terminals larger and security more efficient.
Barcelona Airport is also due to get a major upgrade.
If plans are approved, AENA will invest £2.8billion into expanding the airport, with the operator hoping to reach a runway capacity of 90 flights per hour.
Both projects form part of the DORA III plan – a £11.3billion investment plan for the next five years.
In other Spanish flight news, another airline is launching new flight routes from UK to five top Spanish destinations including ‘Europe’s best city’.
Plus, Jet2’s new flights will connect the UK to two Spanish beach cities.