Ryanair sees fourth quarter as ‘hugely uncertain’ following €96m loss
Ryanair sees this quarter as ‘hugely uncertain’ after posting a €96m loss in the three months ended 31 December.
Due to the rise of Omicron and the consequent travel restrictions imposed at the end of the year, the low-cost airline saw January capacity cut 33 per cent, while traffic was reduced from 10 million passengers to between 6 and 7 million.
The Omicron-induced slump in bookings is also causing Ryanair to introduce lower prices as a way to quickly recover the load factor lost over the holidays.
“Ryanair’s full year traffic forecast remains unchanged at ‘just under’ 100m passengers, but due to Covid uncertainty the FY22 net loss guidance remains within a wider than normal range of €250m to €450m,” said the group’s chief executive Michael O’Leary.
“This outturn is hugely sensitive to any further positive or negative Covid news flow and so we would caution all shareholders to expect further Covid disruptions before we here in Europe and the rest of the world can finally declare that the Covid crisis is behind us.”
Despite losses, Ryanair registered a huge increase in customers and revenue compared with 2020. Passengers grew 286 per cent to 31.1 million while revenue increased to €1.47bn – 331 per cent higher than 2020’s €0.34bn.