Ryanair has announced another huge round of cuts to its sunshine routes, affecting popular destinations across the Mediterranean.

700,000 flights are to be cut, and the budget airline is also axing off-season flights to popular holiday destinations as part of a major winter schedule cutback.

The reduction in seats across the airlines’ sunshine routes will be roughly 45%, with 12 routes set to be dropped.

Ryanair said airport charges were behind the move, claiming some airports were ‘no longer competitive’ during the off-peak season.

Chief Commercial Officer Jason McGuinness said the airline ‘regretted’ the reductions and blamed what he described as a failure to pass on ADF reductions at certain airports.

Flights to Chania and Heraklion in Crete are part of major winter schedule cutbacks.

Jason McGuinness added, ‘Unfortunately, there will now be fewer low-cost air fares for Thessaloniki’s citizens and visitors, and year-round tourism will be harmed as a result.’

The Ryanair planes, which had been used on Greek routes, will be moved to Albania, Sweden, and Italy, where aviation tax reductions have been passed on to airports by those countries’ governments, which Ryanair says will result in more tourism jobs in those regions this winter.

Earlier this year, the budget airline slashed nearly 3 million seats from its 2026 European network, and Ireland was not spared, with routes from Cork, Dublin, and Belfast all cut.

That amounts to around 4,500 flights or up to 800,000 seats, with the airline pointing the finger at the Government’s failure to lift the 32-million-passenger annual cap.

The airline had planned to grow Dublin traffic by 10% this summer but scrapped those plans, instead keeping capacity flat year-on-year.

There were greater blows in Cork as, instead of reduced capacity, Ryanair completely ended routes from Cork to Rome, Gdańsk, and Poznań.

The move was confirmed at the end of March after Ryanair moved one of its four Cork-based aircraft to Shannon.