Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has warned air fares will be higher this summer as airlines look to balance a lack of available aircraft with rising passenger demand for travel.
Mr O’Leary – group chief executive at Ryanair – said Ryanair air fares, this summer, are likely to be 10% higher than last summer.
This is mainly due to capacity constraints, as Ryanair is facing a major delay in new aircraft deliveries from Boeing and its passenger growth will be lower than expected as a result.
According to the Press Association (PA), Mr O’Leary said: “With less aircraft, maybe we’ll have to bring that 205 million down towards 200 million passengers. It might be a scratch below 200 million, we just don’t know at this stage. That probably means that even our growth this year is going to be constrained in Europe, and I think that leads to a higher fare environment across Europe for summer 2024. We’re doing our budgets based on a fare increase of 5-10%, which to me feels kind of reasonable.”
