Ryanair
RYA,
+ 0.95%
said on Wednesday that losses for the year are expected to be slightly lower than initially anticipated, but forecast that there will be fewer passengers next year due to Easter travel restrictions and the slow roll-out of the European Union’s COVID-19 vaccination program.
The Irish low-cost airline expects a net loss before special items of between 800 and 850 million euros (949.9 to 1.01 billion US dollars) for the fiscal year ending March 2021, which is slightly better than that previous instruction in February between € 850 and € 950 million for the period.
It is now forecasting passenger numbers for the year ending March 2022 at the lower end of a previously listed range between 80 and 120 million passengers.
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“Due to the slow adoption of COVID-19 vaccines in the EU, the travel restrictions / bans at Easter and the late recovery of traffic in high season p.21 are likely to be at the lower end of our previously run range of 80m to 120m Passengers. ”
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– Ryanair
“Although it is currently not possible to provide meaningful earnings forecasts for the 2022 financial year, we do not share the recent optimism of some analysts, as we believe that the result for the 2022 financial year is currently close to break even,” said Ryanair in one Explanation On Wednesday.
Ryanair shares, which are up 3.16% year-to-date, rose 1.10% in early London trade on Wednesday.
The news also lifted the shares in the competing airline easyJet
EZJ,
+ 1.33%,
shares rose 1.06% while British Airways owns International Airlines Group
IAG,
+ 1.58%
The stock rose 1.42%.
Airlines like Ryanair
RYAAY,
-0.77%
launched new summer routes to encourage vacationers to travel when coronavirus restrictions ease. In March, Ryanair announced 26 new destinations in Greece, Portugal and Spain and plans to operate a total of 2,000 weekly flights on 400 summer routes.
Read: In the midst of vaccination hurdles, the EU is fighting to save the summer holidays with the COVID passport
Under Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s four-step roadmap to free the UK from its third lockdown, foreign holidays are banned until May 17 at the earliest.
However, Johnson warned people on Monday do not book any summer holidays yetIt was too early for the government to commit to allowing vacations abroad amid the risk of importing more contagious variants of the coronavirus that are behind a spate of infections across Europe.
Read: United, Alaska shares will be upgraded on “Clear Path to Reopening” for the air travel industry
If the ban on unnecessary travel abroad is lifted, it will be replaced by a risk-based ban. three-stage traffic light system to categorize countries for international travel to and from England.
“This new category will take into account countries where we consider the risk to be lower due to, for example, vaccinations, infection rates, the prevalence of variants of concern and their genome sequencing capacity (or access to genome sequencing),” the government said in a statement.
The government’s Global Travel Taskforce will publish its report later this week and provide more details on this system.
