Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has warned of higher ticket prices and airport delays this summer as many look to go abroad after covid travel restrictions were lifted.
He told the Today Programme prices may rise by a “high single-digit per cent” (around 7-9%) and staff shortages would mean further delays. He added there are “pinch points” at airports such as Heathrow and Manchester where “too many people” have been sacked.
Mr O’Leary said: "It seems to us that there will be higher prices into that peak summer period because there's so much demand for the beaches of Europe and those price rises will continue. There's no doubt getting through airports this summer is going to be challenging and we're encouraging all of our customers to show up earlier to allow more time to get through airport security, particularly in Manchester."
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He added he thought capacity across the summer would be down by 10-15% and peak fares for the summer may rise above those seen pre-pandemic.
The comments came as Ryanair reported narrowed annual underlying losses of 355 million euros (£302m) and said it hopes to return to "reasonable profitability" in the current financial year.
The group's loss for the year to March 31 was smaller than expected and narrowed from the 1.02 billion euros (£867m) losses seen the previous year, when trading was badly impacted by the pandemic.
Ryanair said traffic recovered strongly as it carried 97.1 million guests, up from just 27.5 million the year before thanks to the lifting of pandemic restrictions.
It said it hopes to boost this further to 165 million passengers this year - ahead of the 149 million record level seen pre-Covid - but that it was still having to slash prices to secure bookings amid ongoing uncertainty in its first quarter. Mr O’Leary said any recovery “remains fragile”.
The group said there would be “some unbudgeted cost increases” due to soaring oil prices amid the Ukraine war and a fifth of its expected fuel needs not already secured in advance.
Mr O'Leary said it was "impractical, if not impossible" to give guidance for 2022-23 due to the risk to holiday bookings from Covid and the Ukraine war.
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