Ryanair slashes January capacity by a third
James ChappleRyanair has cut its January schedule by a third and expects to post a significantly deeper full-year net loss in the spring owing to the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and the new intra-European travel restrictions imposed to halt its spread.
The budget carrier has lowered its full-year profit guidance (year to 31 March 2022) from a net loss in the range of €100-€200 million to a new range of €250-€450 million.
It said the Omicron and new government travel restrictions across Europe had "notably weakened" near-term Christmas and new year bookings, necessitating a 33% reduction in planned January capacity from around 10 million to six to seven million.
"The impact of these recent government travel restrictions, in particular last weekend’s ban on UK arrivals into France and Germany and the suspension of all EU flights to/from Morocco, has lowered Ryanair’s expected December traffic from between 10 to 11 million to a lower range of between nine to 9.5 million," said the airline board in a trading update.
No decision as yet been made on whether it will reduce its February and March schedules, with Ryanair pledging to revisit the situation in January "as more scientific information becomes available on the Omicron variant".
Ryanair now expects full-year traffic to come in below 100 million passengers. However, the budget carrier said both its traffic and net loss forecasts would be "hugely sensitive" to any further "positive or negative Covid news flow".
"Ryanair hopes to have more clarity, especially on the impact of Omicron on intra-Europe travel restrictions, in time for its Q3 results on 31 January."
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