Holidaymakers looking to book a relaxing summer getaway may have to fork out more money as flight prices are set to soar. Budget airline Ryanair has warned that plane tickets to European destinations will be more expensive this summer due to an increase in demand.
It comes as Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary also told people to arrive at airports such as Manchester and Heathrow in plenty of time due to expected travel chaos due to understaffing and an increase in people looking to get away this summer.
Prices are expected to rise by a “high single-digit per cent” over the peak season now that Covid-19 travel restrictions have eased. Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme lower fares were currently driving an increase in passenger numbers.
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”I think capacity, generally, across the summer will be down 10%, 15%," he said. “Prices will be up by, I think, in the first quarter, they’ll be down on pre-Covid up to June, for the September-quarter at the moment, based on about 50 per cent of all bookings, we expect prices will be up high single-digit percent.
“It seems to us that there will be higher prices into that peak summer period because there’s so much demand for the beaches of Europe and those price rises going to continue."
Ryanair is also currently looking to add new aircraft, new bases and more than 700 new routes after the company reported annual losses of 355 million euros (£302 million).
The group’s loss for the year to March 31 was smaller than expected and narrowed from the 1.02 billion euros (£867 million) losses seen the previous year, when trading was badly impacted by the pandemic.
“I think it’s very difficult to predict, we expect Ryanair to operate about 115 per cent of our pre-Covid capacity this summer," said Mr O'Leary.
“I think prices will be low next winter. But it’s too early to say, there’s clearly going to be an economic downturn, there’s some fear of recession and in a recession the lowest-cost provider, which in the UK and in Europe is Ryanair, will do better, but will do better because we can sustain lower prices.”
