By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Ryanair (LON:RYA) was trading 4.4% higher in London trading Monday following comments from chief executive Michael O’Leary that pointed to strong revival in air traffic and the airline possibly achieving a breakeven this financial year.
O'Leary said the airline is seeing a strong rebound of pent-up travel demand into August and September and “we expect this to continue into the second half of FY22.”
He added that reaching a full-year breakeven would be dependent on the continued rollout of vaccines this summer, "and no adverse Covid variant developments,” Leary said in a press release.
Europe’s largest no-frills airline had posted a net loss of 815 million euro ($962 million) in the financial year ended March 31.
In the three months through June, the airline posted a wider loss of 273 million euros, compared to 185 million a year earlier. Revenue almost trebled to 371 million euro from 125 million euro.
O'Leary said traffic in the current fiscal year is likely to improve to between 90 million and 100 million. That implies a slight improvement in the outlook, given that it had previously guided to the lower end of a range between 80 million and 120 million.
He said visibility for the rest of the year is “close to zero” as people are booking very close to travel dates and fares are staying well below pre COVID-19 levels.
European airlines, like in the rest of the world, have had a tumultuous time for more than a year as governments clamped down on air travel to curb the spread of the pandemic.
That triggered the collapse of many European airlines including Flybe, Norwegian Air Shuttle (OL:NORR) and Lufthansa's Germanwings, and led to substantial capacity cuts at others including Alitalia and SAS (ST:SAS).
The company said it expects to benefit from a strong travel rebound, new bases in Europe and capacity reductions by its competitors.