Europe’s leading airline Ryanair has reported financial losses in the last quarter of 2021 in the amount of 96 million euros, but it plans to organise more flights in 2022 than in the last year before the pandemic, as well as to attract passengers with price cuts, British news portal The Guardian reports.
In the end of January, the management of the Ireland-listed company made a loss of 96 million euros in the last three months of 2021, although that was a significant improvement over the 321-million-euro loses in the same period in 2020, when strict international travel restrictions were still in place. Revenues quadrupled compared with last year, according to the carrier.
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Ryanair added that the first three months of 2022 would require «significant price stimulation at lower prices» to attract customers, which could hit profits. That uncertainty, plus the possibility of new restrictions if another coronavirus variant of concern were to arise, meant the airline left unchanged its guidance for a loss in the year ending in March, at 250 million euros to 450 million euros – a wider than usual range.
Vaccination campaigns and announcements of the easing of the epidemiological restrictions have allowed Ryanair to plan for a summer bookings boom, with a schedule for 2022 that is 114% of 2019, the last year unaffected by the pandemic. It also plans to grow to 225 million passengers a year by 2026, an increase from the previous prediction of 200 million, compared with a pre-Covid peak of 149 million, The Guardian reports.
Ryanair plans stimulating interest in travel with cuts in fare prices
