Ryanair Reports Loss of €815m After Losing 81% of Passengers

Ryanair today (17 May) reported a full year loss of €815 million as traffic fell by 81 per cent due to Covid-19 travel restrictions. The airline has described the last year as “the most challenging” in its 35-year history.

Ryanair said its passenger numbers collapsed from 149 million in the year from March 2019 to March 2020 and blamed many European governments’ “little notice or co-ordination” when imposing flight bans, travel restrictions and national lockdowns.

Despite a brief recovery in summer 2020, the second and third waves of the Covid-19 virus, along with “constantly changing” guidelines, created “enormous disruptions and uncertainty for both our customers and our people.”

But the low-cost airline said the ongoing vaccine rollout will mean a return of European travel this summer and looks forward to a “strong recovery” in travel and tourism in the second half of 2021. In a statement, Ryanair said that “recent strong increases in weekly bookings since early April suggests that this recovery has already begun.”

It also expressed cautious optimism that it will break even next year and is anticipating a positive effect with the delivery of 210 Boeing 737MAX “gamechanger” aircraft, which it says have “4% more seats, 16% lower fuel burn and 40% lower noise emissions and will enable the Ryanair Group to grow to 200m passengers p.a. over the next 5 years.”

*Non-IFRS financial measure, excl. FY21 €200m except. hedge ineffectiveness charge (FY20: €353m charge).