Speaking to journalists, Miguel Albuquerque revealed that the meeting aims to “minimise the effects” of the withdrawal of one of the planes and try to maintain the number of flights currently operating.

“The intention is to remove one of the flights from the base here, but that doesn’t mean we have fewer flights. What we have to do is try to maintain the number of operations we have now”, highlighted Miguel Albuquerque.

Ryanair announced the reduction of one of the two planes at the Madeira base and the reduction in traffic in Porto and Faro next year, due to the increase in airport fees by ANA/Vinci.

Miguel Albuquerque highlighted that the issue of fees “exceeds the executive a little” and considered that this is a discussion that has “more to do with the national context than with Madeira”.

For the president of the Regional Government (PSD/CDS-PP), Ryanair's decision in the autonomous region is more “related to operational issues” than to airport fees.

“The aviation market is experiencing great growth and at the moment companies have great difficulty in acquiring either Boeing or Airbus in the market”, he argued.