Ryanair has announced a full year loss of €815 million, compared to a profit of €1,002 million the previous year. It said full year traffic was 27.5 million passengers, down from 149 million.
The carrier will this month start taking delivery of the first of its new B737-8200 aircraft. The carrier announced in December that it was increasing its order of the plans from 135 to 210 in the belief there will be opportunities for growth in
response to the failure of some airlines and the reduction in services from
some competitors.
The carrier said, “The Covid-19 crisis precipitated
the collapse of a number of EU airlines including Flybe, Norwegian, Germanwings
and Level and substantial capacity cuts at many others…We expect intra-European
air travel capacity to be materially lower for the foreseeable future. This will create opportunities for Ryanair to extend airport growth incentives.”
The new aircraft will have 4 per cent more seats, 16 per cent lower fuel burn and 40
per cent lower noise emissions than the carrier’s existing planes.
It added, “We are encouraged by the recent release
of multiple Covid-19 vaccines and hope that their rollout will facilitate the
resumption of intra-Europe air travel and tourism this summer. If, as is
presently predicted, most European populations are vaccinated by September,
then we believe that we can look forward to a strong recovery in air travel,
jobs and tourism in H2 of the current fiscal year (FY22).”
It is currently forecasting that it will break even
for financial year 2022.