Ryanair has briefed the markets that it now expects the newly announced Covid lockdowns in Ireland, the U.K., and a small number of other EU countries this week, will materially reduce its flight schedules and traffic forecast through January, February and March.
Ryanair now expects its January traffic to fall to under 1.25 million passengers, and that new COVID restrictions could also reduce February and March traffic to as little as 500,000 passengers each month. In response, Ryanair will significantly cut its flight schedules from January 21, which will result in few, if any, flights being operated to/from Ireland or the U.K. from the end of January until such time as these travel restrictions are removed.
These new cutbacks will reduce full year (FY March ’21) traffic forecast from currently “below 35 million” to between 26 million to 30 million passengers. Ryanair does not expect these flight cuts and further traffic reductions will materially affect its net loss for the year to March 31, 2021 since many of these flights would have been loss making.
