Ryanair has warned that plane ticket prices will be rising this summer due to a high demand for European beach holidays.
The airline’s boss Michael O’Leary revealed that he expects flight prices to rise by a high ‘single-digit percentage.’ The airline’s lower fares were currently driving increases in passenger numbers.
This helped the company recover from the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact, and O’Leary hopes the airline will return to reasonable profitability in its current financial year.
An annual loss of €355 million was reported on Monday by the firm, as the Omicron variant and the Ukraine war continued to worsen the likelihood of recuperating after the pandemic. The rise in oil prices and concerns for supplies also disrupted the airline’s operations.
However, the group’s loss for the year up to the 31st of March was smaller than expected, narrowed down from the €1.02bn losses seen the previous year. Prices are set to be lower up to June compared to pre-pandemic levels, but the chief said that they will increase over the summer.
Ryanair said traffic recovered strongly as it carried 97.1 million guests, up from just 27.5 million the year before thanks to the lifting of pandemic restrictions. They now hope to boost this further to 165 million, ahead of the 149 million record from pre-COVID.
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