Ryanair stops flying Poitiers-Barcelona route
The removal of the route in 2026 is the latest French change by the low-cost carrier
Ryanair is scaling back routes, leaving fewer low-cost links for regional travellers
Travelling Tourist / Acuestagr / Shutterstock
The departmental council of Vienne (Nouvelle-Aquitaine) confirmed that the route had been discontinued, when contacted by La Nouvelle République.
One regular, who often used the route to visit family in Vienne from his adopted home of Spain, said he had received a Facebook message from Poitiers-Biard Airport when he contacted it about the flights.
It read: “Hello, thank you for your loyalty to this route. Unfortunately, the Barcelona-Poitiers service will not be running for the 2026 season, which we deeply regret. Rest assured that we are doing everything we can to reinstate this route from Poitiers from 2027.”
Ryanair has not yet officially confirmed (e.g. via press release / similar) that the route will be returning in 2027.
The regular visitor says that he now has to use Nantes airport instead, and drive to Vienne by road (see the map below for the route from Nantes Atlantique airport to Poitiers-Biard). This costs more and takes longer, he told La Nouvelle République.
Drop in passenger numbers
The Poitiers-Barcelona route has seen a drop in popularity in the past couple of years, with an 8% fall in numbers from 2024-2025 (19,242 to 17,689 passengers). This mirrors overall trends at the airport; there was an 8.9% drop in passenger traffic from 2024-2025, including to destinations such as London and Edinburgh, reported the Poitiers-Biard Airport Joint Authority in January 2026.
The change leaves the airport serving just four cities in 2026:
Lyon (two flights a week on Mondays and Fridays)
London (one flight a week on Sundays)
Edinburgh (two flights a week in summer, on Wednesdays and Saturdays)
Montenegro (three dates scheduled for May 2026).
Ryanair route changes
It comes as Ryanair has been removing flights across Europe in recent years, with several French routes affected, including Brive-Porto, Limoges-Marseille, and Beauvais-Béziers.
Yet, the changes have also seen the reinstatement and creation of routes for this summer too, including flights to and from London Stansted (and other UK hubs) and Brive, Tours, and Bergerac.
Historically, Ryanair has served many smaller airports in France, making it easier for residents to travel to and from family in the UK and beyond.
But in late 2025, Ryanair chief commercial officer Jason McGuinness said that “France is becoming less and less relevant for Ryanair”, and said that extra taxes on flights at airports such as Brive and Bergerac “simply makes those airports economically unviable for us because we operate there on very tight margins”.
He added that “at this stage none of the 300 additional aircraft we are expecting will go to France”, and blamed the French government for too-high taxes and for no conclusion to previously proposed plans to double the company’s airport capacity in the country’s provinces.
Many Connexion readers have written to us to say that they would gladly pay more, within reason, for Ryanair services near them to remain.
