Ryanair Posts Annual Record Loss Of €815m As Crisis Bites Into Profits

Ryainair launches new flights from Liverpool for £4.99

Revealed: Two near-miss Ryanair flights at Malaga Airport classed as “serious incident” Image: Ryanair

Ryanair Posts Annual Record Loss Of €815m As Crisis Bites Into Profits.

HOWEVER, group CEO Michael O’Leary said the airline’s 1.5m new weekly bookings meant “recovery has already begun.” Europe’s largest discount airline flew 27.5m passengers in its financial year to March 31, 2021, down from 149m the previous year in what it called the most challenging in its history, according to Bloomberg.

Ryanair said it was impossible to give a formal profit outlook for the year, but added that it “cautiously believed that the likely outcome for FY22 is currently close to breakeven” if the EU vaccine rollout remains on track.

Ryanair expects traffic to recover as governments begin to lift international travel restrictions, with forecasts for around 80 million to 120 million passengers during the current financial year. It expects to fly just five million to six million passengers between April and June.

“We expect intra-European air travel capacity to be materially lower for the foreseeable future,” the airline said. However, Ryanair said it was “encouraged by the recent release of multiple Covid-19 vaccines and hope that their rollout will facilitate the resumption of intra-Europe air travel and tourism this summer.”

Group chief executive Michael O’Leary said in a pre-recorded presentation that a recent strong increase in weekly bookings suggested the “recovery has already begun.” He also said that bookings had climbed from around 500,000 per week in early April to 1.5 million per week now.

“If, as is presently predicted, most European populations are vaccinated by September, then we believe that we can look forward to a strong recovery” in the second half of the year, from October to March, Michael O’Leary said.

Ryanair Posts Record Loss

The annual loss was slightly better than the loss forecast of €834m in a company poll of analysts. “It’s better than we predicted, but still a fairly traumatic loss for an airline that has been consistently profitable for our 35-year history,” he added.

O’Leary said he expects capacity on intra-European routes to be materially lower for the foreseeable future, creating opportunities to target market share with lower prices, especially next summer, when Ryanair is due to have received as many as 65 Max planes out of an order for 210.


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Ron Howells

Ron actually started his working career as an Ophthalmic Technician- things changed when, during a band rehearsal, his amplifier blew up and he couldn’t get it fixed so he took a course at Birmingham University and ended up doing a degree course. He built up a chain of electronics stores and sold them as a franchise over 35 years ago. After five years touring the world Ron decided to move to Spain with his wife and son, a place they had visited over the years, and only bought the villa they live in because it has a guitar-shaped swimming pool!. Playing the guitar since the age of 7, he can often be seen, (and heard!) at beach bars and clubs along the length of the coast. He has always been interested in the news and constantly thrives to present his articles in an interesting and engaging way.

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