Ryanair has reported a €273 million loss for the first quarter of its financial year, and said that it now expects that “the likely outcome for FY22 is somewhere between a small loss and breakeven”.
The group carried 8.1 million passengers for the quarter to the end of June 2021, compared to just 500,000 for the same period in 2020, when Europe was effectively in lockdown due to the onset of Covid-19.
Group CEO Michael O’Leary said that Covid-19 had “continued to wreak havoc on our business during Q1 with most Easter flights cancelled and a slower than expected easing of EU Government travel restrictions into May and June”.
But striking a positive note he said that the rollout of EU Digital Covid Certificates, and the scrapping of quarantine for vaccinated arrivals to the UK from mid-July had led to “a surge in bookings over recent weeks”.
“Pricing remains below pre Covid-19 levels and there will continue to be great value for Ryanair guests travelling this summer as we focus on recovering traffic, jobs and tourism across our European network,” O’Leary continued.
“Based on current (close-in) bookings, we expect traffic to rise from over five million in June to almost nine million in July, and over ten million in August, as long as there are no further Covid setbacks in Europe.”
In the last few days Ryanair has outlined what it is referring to as “Recovery Schedules” at airports including Manchester and Liverpool.
These include four new routes from Manchester this summer to Santorini, Knock, Bucharest and Verona, followed by six new routes this winter to Kaunas, Paphos, Poznan, Suceava, Zagreb and Salzburg.
Meanwhile from Liverpool the carrier is offering new routes to Rome, Kosice, Kaunas, Zadar and Kos this summer, followed by new flights to Stockholm, Milan Bergamo, Paris Beauvais, Sibiu and Tallinn.
In total Ryanair will operate over 315 weekly flights from Manchester this summer, and 110 from Liverpool.
