Ryanair Flash Sale: Autumn Flights from €15 — but You Have Until 28 August

Ryanair is running a flash sale, and unlike a lot of airline "sales" this one has a genuinely tight window: you have to book by 28 August 2026, and the fares only cover travel between 1 September and 31 October 2026. Promotional fares are limited and subject to availability, so the cheapest seats go first.

Here is what is in it, and — more usefully — how to make sure the fare you click is the fare you actually pay.

The two dates that matter

• Book by: 28 August 2026
• Travel between: 1 September and 31 October 2026

That is the whole mechanic. Miss the booking deadline and the promotional price is gone; pick a date outside the travel window and the sale simply does not apply, however far in advance you book.

What the fares actually look like

Prices depend entirely on where you fly from — the sale page shows fares for one departure airport at a time, so what you see depends on your own airport rather than some single headline price. Checking from Paphos while writing this, one-way fares started at €15.29 to Athens, with Sofia at €19.54, Thessaloniki at €21.24, Naples at €23.79 and Bucharest at €24.64. Longer hops ran higher — Rome around €36, Kraków €38, Paris Beauvais €41, Manchester €55.

Treat those as a sense of scale rather than a promise: they are one airport's fares at one moment, and promotional seats sell out. Put your own departure airport into the sale page and you will get a completely different list.

The real win is the travel window, not the discount

September and October are shoulder season across most of Europe, and that is where the value hides. The Mediterranean is still warm, the summer crowds have gone home, and prices fall off a cliff the moment the school holidays end. A sale that only covers those months is really a nudge to do the thing that saves the most money anyway — flying just outside peak dates.

Midweek departures within that window are cheaper again. If your dates flex at all, compare a Tuesday or Wednesday against a Friday before you book.

Making sure €15 stays €15

This is where most people lose the saving. A Ryanair headline fare buys you a seat and one small bag that fits under the seat in front — nothing else. Everything above that is sold separately, and it stacks up quickly:

• A larger cabin bag in the overhead locker costs extra (via Priority), and a checked bag costs more again — always cheaper added online than at the airport.
• Seat selection is optional; skip it and you get a random seat, but a group travelling together may be split up.
• Airport check-in carries a stiff fee. Check in online and save the boarding pass to your phone before you leave.

Travel with only the free under-seat bag, check in online, take the random seat and bring your own water through security, and a €15 fare really is €15. We break the exact sizes and costs down in how to fly carry-on only with Ryanair, Wizz Air and easyJet, and the fuller picture in are budget airlines worth it.

Is a sale fare automatically a good deal?

Not always, and this is worth saying plainly. "Sale" is a marketing word: some routes drop meaningfully, others are priced roughly where they sit most of the year. The only way to know is to have a sense of what your route normally costs — which is exactly what we track. Before booking, check the fare against what that route usually goes for, and remember to count bags and the trip to the airport in the total.

Worth a look if your dates are flexible

If you were already thinking about a trip in September or October, this is a reasonable moment to book — the window is short and the cheapest seats are limited. If you were not, do not let a countdown talk you into a trip you did not want; there will be another sale.

Either way, it is worth comparing the sale fare against what is already out there. We check fares from across Europe every morning and post the genuine drops, sale or no sale.

See today's cheap flight deals →