Ryanair Ends All Four Nis Routes, Last Flight October 24

Ryanair is suspending flights from Nis starting with the 2026/2027 winter schedule, shutting down all four routes it held at Constantine the Great Airport. The Irish low-cost carrier confirmed the pullout in responses to newsrooms, and its last plane out of Nis is scheduled for October 24.

The withdrawal became public on Thursday, not through a statement but through the booking platform. Passengers noticed the system no longer offered tickets for the Nis routes past the summer schedule. The airline only confirmed what was happening once reporters asked directly.

What exactly disappears from the schedule

Ryanair flew two year round routes and two seasonal ones out of Nis. The year round routes are Vienna and Malta, the seasonal ones Stockholm Arlanda and Corfu. All four are ending, though not on the same day, following the order in which they drop out of the booking system:

• Stockholm Arlanda, tickets unavailable from the end of August
• Corfu, tickets unavailable from the end of September
• Vienna and Malta, tickets unavailable from the end of October

The reason the airline gives is the same in every response, and it stays at the level of a general statement.

“Unfortunately, we are suspending flights to and from Nis from winter 2026 due to fuel regulation problems affecting the airport.”

Ryanair did not specify what those problems actually are. There is no name of a regulation and no name of an authority, just an indication that the obstacle sits on the airport’s side, not the carrier’s.

Why does fuel bring down flights from Nis?

Because Nis has no alternative fuel supplier. The Oil Industry of Serbia (NIS) is the only jet fuel supplier at that airport and the only operator of its storage and supporting infrastructure, and it is under US sanctions over its Russian ownership stake. A carrier unwilling to risk doing business with a sanctioned entity in Nis has nowhere else to turn.

This is neither a surprise nor the first warning sign. Ryanair flagged fuel supply problems in Serbia back in early July, pointing to the same NIS sanctions. That was a warning then, this is a decision on the flight schedule now, and a flight schedule is published months in advance and does not change easily.

Management at Constantine the Great Airport said it is monitoring the situation after tickets were pulled from sale for the period following the summer schedule: “We are in communication with Ryanair’s management and expect an official response on how the situation develops further.” The airport also pointed back to its July warning, expressing confidence the problems will be overcome.

Ten years, and one low-cost carrier left

Ryanair launched its first scheduled flights out of Nis in September 2016. Ten years later, the network it built over that time disappears all at once, not route by route as usually happens when a carrier weighs the profitability of a single destination. Shutting down the entire Nis program in one move signals a decision that was not based on how full the flights were.

This is also the first measurable loss tied to NIS’s sanctioned status outside the oil industry itself. Until now the fallout showed up in refinery operations, licensing and payment processing, in other words in the sector actually under sanctions. Now it has spread to air traffic, to an airport that has no ownership tie to NIS and is not the subject of any sanctions itself, but buys its fuel there.

After Ryanair’s exit, Wizz Air remains in Nis as the only low-cost carrier. That means the entire low-cost program at one airport now depends on the business judgment of a single carrier, one that buys fuel at the same place and faces the same regulatory framework. In negotiations, the airport loses what had given it leverage until now: the ability to point to a competitor.

Europe’s winter schedule begins in late October, and late October is exactly the cutoff by which Ryanair is still selling tickets for Vienna and Malta. Until then the airport is waiting for an official response from the airline on how things develop, while the question of fuel supply in Nis gets resolved without either the airport or the carrier at the table.