Ryanair CEO O’Leary Sees ‘Dramatic’ Jump in Ticket Sales

(Bloomberg) --

Ryanair Holdings Plc has seen a “dramatic recovery” in bookings over the past two weeks as the easing of pandemic travel curbs across Europe encourages people to fly again.

The Irish low-cost carrier’s planes are flying about 75% full and could reach 90% of capacity by the peak of the summer high season, Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary said at a briefing in Milan Wednesday.

Ryanair expects fares to remain “very low” through May before rising for summer, by which point it’s possible that a combination of strong demand and limited capacity could see them climb above pre-coronavirus levels, O’Leary said. Trends for next winter are difficult to predict, he said.

Shares of Ryanair spiked, and were up 3.4% as of 3:38 p.m. in Dublin. 

The comments mark a change of tone from Europe’s biggest discount airline. Late last month, when Ryanair reported quarterly results, O’Leary took a cautious view on the pace of the tourism rebound.

At the time, Ryanair said it would cut prices to stimulate demand this quarter while more countries considered removing travel restrictions. Since then, nations including France and Spain have moved to ease rules for vaccinated people and the number of infections has fallen throughout the region.

European airlines are counting on a bumper summer season driven by pent-up demand after a two-year downturn in travel caused by the Covid outbreak.

Smaller rivals EasyJet Plc and Wizz Air Holdings Plc are adding new routes and increasing capacity to tap into the demand. O’Leary was in Milan to introduce flights from northern Italy to Newcastle, England, Frankfurt, Germany, and the sunny Portuguese island of Madeira.

Aggressive Expansion

Ryanair previously announced plans for an aggressive expansion as travel returns, with 720 new routes and 15 new bases announced for the fiscal year beginning in April. On Wednesday, the carrier said it will base 25 more aircraft in Italy this summer and add 20 more routes from the country.

O’Leary said in an interview that he doesn’t see labor shortages putting an inflationary squeeze on airlines as in some other sectors. The candidate pool has been swelled with pilots and flight attendants who lost their jobs during the pandemic, he said.

Supply is tighter in the U.K., however, with recruitment of cabin crew made tougher by a dearth of overseas workers following the country’s exit from the European Union.

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