DUBLIN – Ryanair (NASDAQ: RYAAY) expects average fares to fall between 5% and 9% year on year in the three months to the end of September. However, bookings have strengthened in recent weeks, according to group chief executive Michael O’Leary on Thursday.
In July, O’Leary said fares might fall by over 10% during the period, the second quarter of Ryanair’s financial year, but in August he said the fall was likely to be closer to 5%.
“It’s too early to say where it will finish up, but it will be somewhere between 5% and 9%,” O’Leary told investors at Ryanair’s annual general meeting. “We hope it will be toward the lower end of that range.”
“In recent weeks as the schools have gone back, we have seen a strengthening of bookings, and the trend I think is modestly positive,” he said.
Speaking to reporters before the AGM, O’Leary said average fares for the remainder of the year were likely to be down somewhere between 5% and 10%, but later said his 5-10% estimate was a reference to the July-September quarter and that the airline had no visibility beyond that.
O’Leary told reporters in London in August that average fares might be down “5%-ish” on an annual basis in the six months to the end of March.
(Source: ReutersReuters)
