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Ryanair has forecast a return to “reasonable” profitability over the next year as the travel industry recovers from the pandemic, but warned that the outlook for flying remained fragile and vulnerable to new shocks.
The Irish carrier posted a loss of €355mn for the 12 months to the end of March, towards the lower end of the previously guided range of €350mn to €400mn, and down from €1.015bn the year before.
The low-cost airline’s chief executive Michael O’Leary on Monday said he expected the airline to carry more passengers this summer than it did in 2019, a reflection of the “pent-up” demand for flying as travel restrictions have loosened across Europe.
But he warned that “we expect to fill these flights with lower fares and at higher fuel costs than pre-Covid”, a reflection of the delicate state of the industry more than two years after the pandemic hit.
Ryanair said passengers were still booking much closer to their flights than was normal before the pandemic.
Prices in this quarter have remained low to encourage people to travel as the impact of the Omicron coronavirus variant has lingered while the Russian invasion of Ukraine has also hit demand.
The airline said it expects to carry more passengers this financial year, which runs from the beginning of April, than the record 149mn carried before Covid.
The carrier failed to give a financial outlook, saying: “It is impractical (if not impossible) to provide a sensible or accurate profit guidance range at this time.”
Shares in the Dublin-based group have declined more than 10 per cent this year.
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