The budget carrier’s prediction came as it recorded a €170 million profit in the three months to 30 June (Q1), a year-on-year swing of €443 million from the €273 million Q1 loss it reported a year ago, albeit still short of the €243 million Q1 profit it recorded in Q1 2020.
Ryanair carried 45.5 million passengers in Q1 2022 on a load factor of 92%, up from 8.1 million in Q1 2021 when load factor was 73%. Carryings were also 9% ahead of pre-Covid levels for the pre-summer quarter despite Easter bookings and fares being "badly damaged" by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
Group chief executive Michael O’Leary, meanwhile, said Ryanair’s decision to work with the unions representing its staff and crew during the pandemic to agree pay reductions and minimise job losses had been "vindicated" in recent months with the aviation sector now struggling to staff up sufficiently to meet demand.
"Ryanair seems unusual among the major EU airlines in Summer 2022, insofar as we are fully crewed, despite operating at 115% of our pre-Covid capacity," said O’Leary. He added that despite "unprecedented air traffic control and airports handling delays", Ryanair was confident of operating "almost 100% of scheduled flights" while also minimising delays and disruption.
On the pandemic and other global issues, O’Leary said Ryanair "remained hopeful" high levels of vaccination in Europe would allow the airline and tourism industry to recovery "and finally put Covid behind us". However, he stressed: "We cannot ignore the risk of new Covid variants in autumn 2022.
"Our experience with Omicron last November and the Ukraine invasion in February shows how fragile the air travel market remains, and the strength of any recovery will be hugely dependent upon there being no adverse or unexpected developments over the remainder of FY23."
Ryanair said that while there were clear signs of pent-up travel demand, lead-in times on bookings remained shorter than they were pre-Covid for this time of year. It also warned visibility remained limited going into the "typically loss making" second half of the year.
"At this time, Q2 average fares (three months to 30 September) are tracking ahead of peak summer 2019 levels by a low double digit percentage," O’Leary revealed, adding that Ryanair planned to grow full-year traffic to 165 million – up 11% on pre-Covid levels.
Challenges, though, include high fuel prices which Ryanair said would lead to "increased costs" on the 20% of fuel it hasn’t hedged for the remainder of its 2022/23 full-year. Other challenges highlighted by O’Leary included Ryanair’s later booking profile, the lack of visibility, volatile oil prices, and potential Covid, geopolitical and supply chain risks.
He said Omicron and Ukraine showed how any guidance is subject to a very rapid change from unexpected events which are well beyond our control during what remains a very strong but still fragile recovery".
