Ryanair predicts return to pre-pandemic passenger numbers this winter

Ryanair expects to return to pre-pandemic passenger numbers this winter, as Europe’s largest airline banks on a “very strong recovery” in travel. The low-cost carrier has launched 14 new routes from London for this winter and will slash the prices of its flights to encourage passengers to step back on board. “The recovery has been very strong,” said CE Michael O’Leary. He claimed that “no airline has recovered as quickly as we have” after estimating that Ryanair carried just over 10.5m customers in August. He expected the airline to sustain those numbers in September and October, with the launch of new routes from Stansted and Luton airports to locations including Grenoble, Turin, Naples and Helsinki, which will help to create 500 new jobs. Between November to March, O’Leary expected Ryanair to hit pre-pandemic passenger levels on a monthly basis. Monthly numbers are currently running at 85 per cent of pre-Covid levels. The airline is then expected to exceed its annual pre-pandemic level of about 150m travellers in the year to March 2023. Ryanair is planning an aggressive expansion: it will receive 55 Boeing 737 Max aircraft this winter and the same number each year until 2025. Its fleet will expand to 600 aircraft by the end of the 2026 financial year, up from more than 450. However O’Leary predicted that it would take until the summer of next year for prices to return to normal levels. “There’s a lot of pent-up demand there,” he said. “The pent-up demand will take advantage of low pricing, pricing will then begin to work its way back up to pre-pandemic levels.” He added that the UK’s traffic light system was holding back more travellers from going abroad because of the uncertainty. “The UK is lagging behind,” he said. “The traffic light system serves no purpose any more.”<br/>