Ryanair back at 80 per cent passenger capacity by summer, O’Leary predicts
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary today said that he expected the airline’s passenger numbers to return to 75 per cent to 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels next summer.
Speaking to a travel conference this morning, the Irish businessman said that he expected to see a surge in tourism as soon as travel restrictions are lifted.
His comments came a day after Pfizer announced that the vaccine it was developing with Biontech had proved 90 per cent effective in trials.
The announcement sent airline shares soaring amid hopes that the vaccine could offer a way out of the current downturn, which has hammered the world’s airlines. Ryanair shares rose 16 per cent.
“There’s reasonable optimism now that summer 2021 will get back to some degree of normality”, O’Leary said.
“In short-haul, I see no reason why we won’t get back to 75 to 80 per cent of 2019”, he added. “The only restriction on us will be whether we can hire and train pilots and cabin crew”.
However, he warned that the winter period would be a “write-off” for the industry, saying that it would be a case of trying to rescue as much business as possible over Christmas.
“November is always a bad time of the year for the industry. The real issue for us is whether we can rescue some level of coverage for Christmas.
“After that, nothing will happen until probably Easter. But we do need to look forward. Vaccines are coming – the question is whether they will be widely available for summer 2021. I think they will.”
International travel is currently banned in the UK as one of the restrictions of the second national lockdown, which is set to end on 2 December.
But despite the new restrictions, which have seen Ryanair cut back capacity by 20 per cent over the coming quarter, O’Leary was typically bullish over the low-cost carrier’s prospects.
He said that the airline was “poised for a period of very dynamic growth”, but said a working test and trace regime was essential to getting the industry going again.
O’Leary again slammed the “incompetence” of European governments in managing the pandemic, and also confirmed that the carrier was “pushing hard” for Air Passenger Duty to be waived.
This would “stimulate a much more aggressive recovery”, he said.