Ryanair expands Sweden to 43 routes and warns on charges

SEK 1 = $0.103

Ryanair announced its record Winter 2026 schedule for Sweden on 10 September, delivering 4.6 million passengers per year across 43 routes, including five new city pairs and an additional Boeing 737 based at Stockholm Arlanda, bringing the carrier's total based-aircraft investment in Sweden to $800mn.

The five new routes connect Stockholm Arlanda to Rabat, Warsaw and Wroclaw, Gothenburg to Budapest, and Malmö to London; the additional Arlanda aircraft raises Ryanair's Swedish base fleet to eight jets, supporting more than 3,600 jobs. The schedule represents a 16 per cent increase in annual passenger capacity from the Summer 2026 figure.

The announcement is directly connected to Sweden's decision in July 2025 to abolish its aviation tax, a move Ryanair had lobbied for and which it says triggered the current wave of growth; the carrier added three based aircraft and committed an incremental $300mn since the tax was removed. Michael O'Leary said: "Since the Swedish Govt's sensible decision to abolish the Aviation Tax in July '25, Ryanair has responded with supercharged growth, adding 3 based aircraft and 43 routes across Sweden."

The growth comes with an explicit condition: Ryanair warned that future expansion is at risk from Swedavia's airport charge increases, which have risen 22 per cent since the aviation tax was abolished, with the current average charge standing at SEK 185.60 per departing passenger. Swedavia is consulting airlines on 2027 charges through September and October, with a decision expected before year-end.

Ryanair said it is ready to double Swedish traffic to 8 million passengers annually, base six additional aircraft and create 6,000 new jobs by 2030, conditional on airport charges and the security fee remaining cost-competitive. The carrier is simultaneously closing its three-aircraft Thessaloniki base this winter and removing approximately 700,000 seats from Greece after airport charges rose; the Swedish warning, in that context, is not rhetorical.

The context for Ryanair's Swedish push is significant: legacy carriers including SAS, now in transition under Air France-KLM ownership, have reduced capacity on intra-Scandinavian routes as the fuel cost environment has compressed margins on thinner services. Ryanair has consistently taken share in markets where legacy carriers retreat; the Swedish schedule announcement is a direct statement of intent in a market significantly affected by the SAS restructuring.