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Ryanair’s profits plummeted in its most recent quarter, as the coronavirus pandemic forced airlines to ground their fleets and caused passenger numbers and revenues to slump.
The budget carrier’s first-quarter results released on Monday showed a net loss of €185m in the first quarter of this fiscal year, compared with a net profit of €243m in the same period the previous year. “The past quarter was the most challenging in Ryanair’s 35-year history,” the carrier said in a statement. Over 99 per cent of flights were grounded and the number of passengers fell from 42m to 500,000 in April-June as the lockdown took hold. Revenue fell by almost €2.2bn, to €125m. “A second wave of Covid-19 cases across Europe in late autumn (when the annual flu season commences) is our biggest fear right now,” the airline said in a statement.
The losses came despite an 85 per cent reduction in costs, Ryanair said, including through redundancies and pay cuts. The carrier announced in May that it would cut up to 15 per cent of its workforce, warning it would take at least two years for a return to pre-Covid levels. But it said the cutbacks for other carriers would present an opportunity for Ryanair to expand its fleet and network, taking advantage of lower airport and aircraft costs.
After restarting 40 per cent of its pre-Covid flights, across 90 per cent of its route network, from July, the airline said it plans to increase to 60 per cent of its normal schedule in August and 70 per cent in September. Across the year, it expects traffic to fall by 60 per cent, from 149m to 60m, it said.
Source: Financial Times