Ryanair to slash summer fares as profits decline
22 July 2024, 12:50
Budget airline Ryanair is set to slash ticket prices this summer after profits fell by almost 50%.
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Cash-conscious travellers taking fewer trips and the timing of this year’s Easter school holidays hit Ryanair’s earnings, the company said.
Profits declined to £338m in the three months to 30 June when compared with the same period in 2023.
Passenger fairs also fell by 15% in this time, with the airline planning more discounts in the weeks and months to come.
"Fares are now moving materially lower than the prior year and pricing... continues to deteriorate," Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary said, announcing the company’s latest financial results.
These results mean Ryanair now expects ticket costs between July and September to be "materially lower" when compared to 2023, rather than "flat to modestly up" as previous predictions indicated.
Chief financial officer Neil Sorahan added customers are being more “frugal” this summer and are “pushing back” against increasing costs.
This comes just days after a global IT outage saw over 5,000 flights across the globe cancelled or delayed.
George Kurtz, the CEO of cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, whose defective update caused Windows systems across the globe to crash, said he wanted to "sincerely apologize" for the disruption to travel, healthcare and businesses.
He added: "Nothing is more important to me than the trust and confidence that our customers and partners have put into CrowdStrike.
"As we resolve this incident, you have my commitment to provide full transparency on how this occurred and steps we’re taking to prevent anything like this from happening again."
Mr Kurtz did not give a time frame for when the issue would be resolved, saying only that it would take "some time" in an earlier interview.
Air travel was especially hard hit by the outages, with over 5,000 flights cancelled worldwide as of Friday evening UK time, according to analytics firm Cirium.
"This equates to 3.9 per cent of all scheduled flights globally [with] 143 flights cancelled departing UK airports so far (4.6 per cent of all scheduled departures), with a further 142 inbound arrivals cancelled," they added.
