A Ryanair cabin crew member looks out the window at Ryanair’s planes.
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LONDON – Ryanair expects this fiscal year to be “the most challenging” in its 35-year history, the company said Monday, as governments step up travel restrictions in an effort to curb new variants of Covid-19.
The budget airline is on track for a net loss of between $ 850 million ($ 1.03 billion) and $ 950 million for fiscal year 2021, which ends in March. It reported a net loss of Euro 306 million for the three months ended December.
“Covid-19 continues to wreak havoc in the industry,” Ryanair said in a statement. It added that Christmas and New Year’s traffic was “seriously affected” by travel bans imposed on British travelers in late December.
A number of European governments have decided to impose restrictions on flights leaving the UK before Christmas, following news that a new variant of Covid-19 identified in the province was spreading rapidly. This contributed to a traffic decrease of 83% in December for Ryanair.
The EU now needs to ramp up the slow pace of its rollout program to match the UK’s performance.
The airline “expects the latest lockdowns and Covid pre-arrival test requirements will significantly reduce flight schedules and traffic until Easter.”
In the new year, European governments extended or introduced lockdowns as they faced a surge in new infections. More recently, countries in the region have discouraged non-essential travel as they strive to reduce their number of daily cases. It is currently unclear when countries will reopen their economies and even encourage travel abroad.
However, European governments are vaccinating their populations in the hope that this will allow them to return to normal daily life more quickly. However, the introduction of vaccines in Europe is fraught with production, supply and red tape.
“We take some consolation from the success of the UK vaccine program, which is on track to vaccinate nearly 50% of the UK population (30 million) by the end of March. The EU must now accelerate the slow pace of its adoption. program to match the UK’s performance, ‘Ryanair said Monday.
Ryanair’s shares are down about 12% since the start of the year.