Ryanair Sees a Further Drop in Fares to Counteract 'Pingdemic,' Travel Uncertainty -- Update
July 26 2021 - 3:05AM
Dow Jones News
By Anthony O. Goriainoff
Ryanair Holdings PLC said Monday that it expects the U.K.'s
current "pingdemic" to lead to more uncertainty and that it will
counteract this with more price stimulation and lower fares in the
near term.
The "pingdemic" refers to people being notified by the U.K.
National Health Service's Covid-19 app that they need to
self-isolate for a set amount of time after it registers users have
been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for the
coronavirus.
Neil Sorahan, Ryanair's chief financial officer, said in an
interview that although he expects passengers to continue making
bookings closer to the departure date over the summer period and
into the fourth quarter, this would start to change as the level of
vaccination increases.
"We have raised our traffic guidance for the year as we are more
comfortable now with the increased level of vaccinations, and
people feel more confident to travel, especially in the U.K. where
we've seen a pick-up in bookings," Mr. Sorahan said.
The London-listed low-cost carrier said it raised its traffic
forecast for the fiscal year to a range of 90 million to 100
million passengers, from its previous guidance for the lower end of
80 million to 120 million. It added that the likely outcome for the
fiscal year would be somewhere between a small loss and breakeven,
though this was dependent on the continued rollout of vaccines this
summer and no adverse Covid-19 developments.
The budget airline said traffic recovered significantly in the
first quarter ended June 30, to 8.1 million passengers from 500,000
a year earlier. The company said it had achieved this by drawing in
travelers with lower fares, as most flights in the Easter
period--traditionally its strongest contributor in the
quarter--were canceled because of "the delayed relaxation of
government travel restrictions across the EU and the U.K. into May
and June."
Mr. Sorahan said the company expects traffic of nine million
passengers for July, and 10 million in August and in September.
Traffic is expected to be around 38 million to 39 million
passengers by the end of the first half, he said.
Ryanair said its first-quarter net loss was 272.6 million euros
($320.9 million), compared with a net loss of EUR185.1 million a
year earlier.
Revenue was EUR370.5 million, compared with EUR125.2 million, it
said. Ryanair said ancillary revenue rose to EUR178.6 million from
EUR24.5 million a year earlier.
"With the booking curve remaining very close-in and fares well
below pre-Covid-19 levels, visibility for the remainder of fiscal
2022 is close to zero. It therefore remains impossible to provide
meaningful fiscal 2022 guidance at this time," the company
said.
Write to Anthony O. Goriainoff at
anthony.orunagoriainoff@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 26, 2021 02:59 ET (06:59 GMT)
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