Ryanair sees summer recovery on vaccines but warns over Cork Airport

In its most recent third quarter through Christmas, Ryanair said it had a loss of €306m. Picture: Larry Cummins

Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary is predicting a recovery for European aviation this summer but only after “a write-off” Easter as it awaits for the roll-out of vaccinations but warned that full recovery of its services at Cork Airport could be delayed.

Citing the continuing uncertainty of Covid restrictions, the airline cut its forecast for passenger numbers to between 26 million and 30 million and forecast a net loss of up to €950m for its full 2021 financial year.

Mr O’Leary said the airline will tap recovery in the summer season as the UK vaccinates a large part of its population in the coming months and urged Ireland and the rest of Europe to catch up.

“Because vaccination is the way out of this Covid crisis and not these failed lockdowns,” he told Morning Ireland.

Driven by vaccines, he said he saw a recovery in the summer after an Easter “write-off” but he said that optimism was needed instead of what he called pessimism from health authorities and the media.

He said that the airline believed Shannon would reopen for the summer and predicted a strong recovery in travel at Dublin, but said that the airline did not see a strong recovery at Cork because he said the airport needed to lower access costs.

On refunds, Mr O’Leary again claimed that everyone who requested a refund from Ryanair has received a refund and that there was “no backlog in refunds”.

In its most recent third quarter through Christmas, Ryanair said it had a loss of €306m, compared with a profit of €88m a year earlier and carried only 8.1 million passengers in that third quarter, down from almost 36 million a year earlier.

Ryanair reiterated it held huge cash reserves of €3.5bn and looked to the return of the new Boeing aircraft and its orders to strengthen its operations.

“As we look beyond the Covid-19 crisis, and vaccinations roll out, the Ryanair Group expects to have a much lower cost base and a strong balance sheet, which will enable it to fund lower fares and add lower cost aircraft to capitalise on the many growth opportunities that will be available in all markets across Europe, especially where competitor airlines have substantially cut capacity or failed,” the airline said.