Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary has stressed the recovery remains “very fragile” and warned of “negative news” this autumn about Covid-19 or the war in Ukraine.
O’Leary reported “a strong recovery” in passenger traffic and profits in first-quarter results for April to June, but warned: “It’s very fragile, capable of being damaged at short notice.
“The challenge is whether it will continue into winter.”
O’Leary insisted: “The current performance is good, but the outlook is cautious. It is hugely dependent on there being no more adverse news flows.
“Operationally we’re doing well, but caution is the key word. When the schools go back in September, we’ll be exposed to any negative news.
“It would be sensible to foresee some adverse developments on Covid and to watch out for adverse developments on Ukraine.”
He argued: “Omicron dealt us a huge blow across November, December, January and February [and] I would not underestimate the extent to which the first quarter [April to June] was damaged by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“You can’t ignore the risk of new Covid variants, and we don’t know what is going to happen in Ukraine.
“We expect some adverse news flows. We’re not sure there won’t be Covid disruptions or Ukraine disruption this autumn and winter. The situation could be more risky.”
O’Leary added: “My concern is advance bookings are not yet recovered to pre-Covid levels. If there are negative developments on Covid or Ukraine, close-in bookings will get hurt. We saw that at Christmas and Easter.”
Ryanair will reduce capacity this winter while still offering more seats than in 2019.
O’Leary said: “We expect to trim capacity in the second half of the [financial] year [October to March], to high single-digit growth on pre-Covid capacity.”
The carrier is operating 15% more capacity than in 2019 this summer.
He explained: “Winter is very fluid. We’ll cut back mid-week flying in November, December, January and February. But if there are cutbacks by competitors, we might opportunistically change that.”
The carrier already has 50% of its seats on sale for next summer. But asked about the likely pricing of flights in 2023, O’Leary said: “We can’t even tell you what pricing for the second half of [this] August will be, let alone what pricing will be in summer 2023.”
Ryanair reported a profit of €170 million for the three months to June 30.