Ryanair said it has reaped strong traffic growth after a summer when the airline’s fares were down 5% and passenger numbers passed 20 million a month.
Shares in Europe’s biggest carrier rose on Tuesday, after the group chief executive, Michael O’Leary, revised previous gloomier predictions of a double-digit drop in peak-season fare income, although he said the dent in revenues would probably last until spring 2025.
“Pricing was not quite as bad as we had feared at the start of the summer – it looks down 5%, we thought there was a risk it could be higher,” O’Leary said.
“Passenger numbers are strong, we’re just about on track to hit 200 million for the full year … It could have been worse. Passengers are getting slightly lower fares, but we’re being rewarded with significant traffic growth.”
O’Leary called on the Labour government to review air passenger duty (APD), claiming that Ryanair would expand faster in the UK without the departure tax, which costs £13 for a short-haul European flight or £7 for a domestic flight.
He said: “Taking them at their word, they want to deliver growth. One of the industries where they can deliver dramatic, pretty rapid growth would be aviation or tourism. The impediment there is APD.”
He said the government should also demand urgent reform of air traffic control (ATC) services, expressing frustration at increasing delays from airspace constraints in the UK and EU.
According to Canso, the body representing ATC services in Europe and the UK, a combination of ever more flights, the closure of Ukrainian and Russian airspace, extreme weather and staffing problems have posed “significant challenges”. Simon Hocquard, its director general, also blamed “financial constraints” as EU regulators have sought to limit charges on airlines for ATC services, which he said was “a false economy”.
O’Leary said: “They hide behind weather – it’s not the issue here. You will have occasional thunderstorms, but there’s no weather issues affecting the first wave of takeoffs. Historically, we would have about 5% of our flights delayed on the first wave; this year, routinely, it’s been 20%. And all that is down to staffing shortages, not any other bullshit excuses.”
The airline has launched a website called “ATC ruined our holiday” to encourage delayed passengers to complain directly to the European Commission.
O’Leary described the EU’s imminent entry-exit system (EES), which will introduce increased border checks from this autumn, as a “retrograde step”. He said Ryanair was campaigning in the EU against the enhanced biometric checks and Etias, the €7 visa waiver that is likely to be introduced next year.
He said: “Making it harder for UK citizens to come to Europe is not the way to respond to Brexit. This idea that you’re going to have electronic fingerprinting of UK passengers or charging €7 for a visa is just antagonising people.
“Brexit has already been an economic disaster. Most people have buyer’s remorse over here anyway, and the Europeans should be encouraging the new Labour government to sign up to a trade agreement with the EU. We don’t think the airports are prepared, they don’t have to be, it’s just the UK passengers stuck in longer queues on arrival.”
Ryanair announced that four new European routes from London Stansted would start operating this winter, to Dubrovnik, Linz, Reggio and Sarajevo.
