Ryanair suffers £234m loss in three months as Covid-19 'wreaks havoc'
26 July 2021, 08:20
Ryanair suffered a £234 million loss in the first three months of the financial year as Covid-19 continued to "wreak havoc", the airline has reported.
Between April and June, the losses were higher than £158 million in the same period of 2020.
However, the first quarter saw an increase in traffic from 0.5 million to 8.1 million, compared to the previous year.
Ryanair flew only 27.5 million people in the year to March 2021, a huge drop from the 148.6 million in the previous year.
The company said: "Covid-19 continued to wreak havoc on our business during Q1 with most Easter flights cancelled and a slower than expected easing of EU govt. travel restrictions into May and June.
"Significant uncertainty around travel green lists (particularly in the UK) and extreme govt. caution in Ireland meant that Q1 bookings were close-in and at low fares."
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It comes as the company revealed that it expected to fly up to 100 million passengers this financial year, having made a good recovery with summer bookings.
That said, the outcome depends on the vaccine rollout over summer as well as the possibility of more Covid variants.
"FY22 continues to be challenging, with Covid-19 travel restrictions prolonging uncertainty," Ryanair said.
"Following the 1st July rollout of EU digital Covid certificates (and the relaxation of the UK's quarantine rules) for fully-vaccinated persons, our group has seen Q2 bookings recover strongly (albeit at low fares).
"We believe that FY22 traffic has improved to a range of 90m to 100m (previously guided at the lower end of an 80m to 120m passenger range) and (cautiously) expect that the likely outcome for FY22 is somewhere between a small loss and breakeven.
"This is dependent on the continued rollout of vaccines this summer and no adverse Covid variant developments."
