Europe’s economy has had lots to cheer about recently, with falling inflation setting the scene for better growth in the coming years. The outspoken CEO of Ryanair, though, isn’t quite so sure.
In fact, Michael O’Leary doesn’t like what his own sales figures are saying about the state of the European economy.
The boss of the continent’s largest airline is banking on a wave of last-minute bookings to hit his passenger targets this summer. But so far, Ryanair has filled only half of its seats between July and August, and the group expects ticket prices to be lower during this year’s peak travel season.
O’Leary’s theory for a slow uptake might make economists take note.
"It is a bit surprising that pricing hasn't been stronger and we're not quite sure whether that's just consumer sentiment or recessionary feel around Europe, but we still see peak travel demand certainly through July and August being strong," O’Leary told investors Monday.
The Irish CEO’s warnings strike a rather bum note amidst Europe’s generally bright macroeconomic mood music.
The continent is close to taming inflation, with the Eurozone’s consumer price index falling near the European Central Bank’s (ECB) target of 2%.
That has allowed some central banks in the continent to slash interest rates, with Sweden’s Riksbank cutting rates ahead of the Fed for the first time this century. The ECB is expected to follow with a Eurozone-wide rate cut in June.
There are of course risks from the dovish approach, not least the return of inflationary pressures, but major analysts have tended to disagree with O’Leary’s assessment.
Morgan Stanley thinks the monetary policy divergence could set up the continent to accelerate just as the U.S. consumer faces the effects of months of pricing pressures.
“We expect that the U.S. consumer and labor market will start to show further signs of deceleration,” Morgan Stanley global economist Rajeev Sibal told Fortune. Euro area consumers, on the other hand, “are seeing a pick up in real incomes as inflation cools, which is supportive for private consumption.”
Swiss investment bank UBS agreed with this sentiment, predicting the Eurozone will pip the U.S., even favoring stocks on the continent, in a rare U-turn.
O’Leary’s pessimistic tone also doesn’t quite match up with the strong results his company just posted. Ryanair boosted full year profits by 34% in 2024 compared with the year before, growing revenues by a quarter.
Confidence low
On the other hand, the outspoken airline boss might have a point.
A flash reading of consumer confidence in the EU and the Eurozone from April showed it was well below the long-term average—as it has been for several years—even if it is slowly returning to trend.
Consumers in Europe might still be carrying scars from the bruising post-pandemic economy. Inflation peaked at 10.6% in October 2022, which alongside higher interest rates considerably hit households’ purchasing power.
Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, has avoided a technical recession but is largely stagnating after watching its economy shrink by 0.3% in 2023.
A March report from McKinsey suggested European consumers were moving cautiously on spending in the wake of these myriad pressures.
O’Leary also isn’t the only boss to point out low consumer confidence even as sentiment toward the European economy appears to be improving.
In April, Heineken CFO Harold van den Broek said it was “quite sobering” that consumer confidence, while improving, was just above where it was in 2008 when the Great Recession hit.
“Consumer sentiment is still subdued. And we're hoping to see the impact progressively in quarter two as wages and the wage increases really start to come into people's pockets,” van den Broek said.
O’Leary, of course, will hope the promise of sun and sea will entice otherwise hesitant customers into splurging on vacations, at the very least giving Ryanair a summer to remember.
