A member of Ryanair’s cabin crew looks out the window at Ryanair planes.
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LONDON – Ryanair expects this financial year to be ‘the most challenging’ in its 35-year history, the company said on Monday when governments tightened travel restrictions in an effort to include new variants of Covid-19.
The budget airline is on track for a net loss of between 850 million euros ($ 1.03 billion) and 950 million euros for the 2021 financial year, which ends in March. It reported a net loss of 306 million euros for the three months ended December.
“Covid-19 continues to wreak havoc in the industry,” Ryanair said in a statement. It added that Christmas and New Year’s traffic had a serious effect on the travel ban imposed on British travelers at the end of December.
A number of European governments have decided before Christmas to impose restrictions on flights leaving the UK following news that a new variant of Covid-19 identified in the country is spreading rapidly. This contributed to an 83% drop in traffic in December for Ryanair.
The EU must now increase the slow pace of its deployment program to meet UK performance.
The carrier “expects that the latest lock-in requirements and the pre-requisite Covid test requirement will significantly reduce flight schedules and traffic through Easter.”
The new year allowed European governments to expand or introduce lockouts because they had a strong increase in new infections. Recently, countries in the region have discouraged unnecessary travel because they want to reduce their number of daily affairs. It is currently unclear when countries will restart their economies and travel abroad so far.
However, European governments are vaccinating their people in the hope that it will enable them to return to the normal day faster. However, the effects of vaccines in Europe are facing problems with production, supply and red tape.
“We are reassured by the success of the UK vaccination program, which aims to vaccinate almost 50% of the UK population (30 million) by the end of March. The EU must now increase the slow pace of its implementation. to match the UK’s performance, ”Ryanair said on Monday.
Ryanair’s shares have fallen by about 12% since the beginning of the year.