The boss of budget airline Ryanair has warned that flight prices are set to rise this summer due to increased demand for European holidays.
Michael O’Leary, the CEO of the Irish airline, said that getting through airports could be more “challenging” for passengers over the coming months.
He urged holidaymakers to brace themselves as holiday prices rise by a “high single-digit per cent” over peak travel season.
His warnings come against a backdrop of chaos at airports including Manchester and Birmingham, where post-lockdown demand has put workforces under serious strain over recent months.
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Mr O'Leary told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that the demand for European beach holidays had skyrocketed thanks to pandemic travel rules being lifted.
He also claimed that this had coincided with too many job losses at both Heathrow and Manchester airports.
He added: “There’s no doubt getting through airports this summer is going to be challenging and we’re encouraging all of our customers to show up earlier to allow more time to get through airport security, particularly in Manchester.”
Ryanair reported losses of around £302m last year, but hopes to improve to “reasonable profitability” soon.
Mr O’Leary said it was “impractical, if not impossible” to predict what would happen to holiday bookings in 2022 to 2023 due to both Covid and the war in Ukraine.
Ryanair carried 97.1million travellers up from 25.7million in 2020.
It hopes to take this number up to 165million passengers in the current year by slashing prices.
But Mr O'Leary claimed prices would go up in coming months due to a predicted fall in capacity.
He continued: “I think capacity, generally, across the summer will be will be down 10%, 15%.
“For the September-quarter at the moment, based on about 50% of all bookings, we expect prices will be up high single digit per cent.
“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.”
The airline warned that prices may rise above pre-pandemic levels due to soaring oil costs.
