Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has warned flight prices will be higher this summer (Nick Potts/PA)
(Picture: PA Wire)RYANAIR’S Covid-related losses soared past £1 billion today as it warned the cost of holiday flights will jump this summer as exhausted Brits seek out Europeanbeaches.
The low cost airline made a loss of e355 million for the year to March. That £302 million hit comes atop £860 million lost last year, taking the total for the last two years to £1.16 billion.
This year’s results were actually less bad than feared but come amid a miserable period for airlines. IAG, the airline group behind British Airways, recently reported a £608 million loss for the first three months of 2022 – almost £5,000 a minute.
Ryanair says traffic numbers improved considerably this year, up from 27.5 million to 97 million thanks to the lifting of pandemic restrictions.
It hopes to return to “reasonable profitability” this year, but is mindful of the effect the war in Ukraine and rising fuel prices could have.
Asked to make a prediction about the near future, chief executive Michael O’Leary said: “It’s too fragile, there remains too many moving parts.”
“Given the continuing risk of adverse news flows on both these topics, it is impractical (if not impossible) to provide a sensible or accurate profit guidance range at this time", he added.
He is hoping for a “strong summer”, aiming to nip in where other airlines have cut flight numbers. “There’s a lot of capacity cutbacks and hopefully we’re going to be the beneficiaries of that,” he said.
Flight prices are going to rise due to demand by a “high single-digit per cent”.
He told the BBC: “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 going to continue.”
Ryanair has around 400 places. The shares today rose $3 to $83. They are down 30% this year.
The company says it does not face the same hiring crisis as other airlines since it made efforts to retain staff even while planes were grounded.
A note from UBS note says: “Trading airlines stocks may be hazardous to your wealth. Over the long term, a diversified portfolio of airline stocks has reliably underperformed.”
