Ryanair: Tickets Will Be 9% More Expensive Than Before The Pandemic, Flights Are Fully Booked

CEO of the Irish airline Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, expects ticket prices to be 7-9% higher this summer than in 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bookings at Europe's biggest low-cost airline are rising, while the so-called load factor, which shows full the flights are, is expected to be around 94% during the summer. That means it will almost reach pre-pandemic levels.

"July, August and September look very good with higher load factors and higher fares as well," he said. "Travel fares are likely to increase in the single digits in the summer, going up 7, 8, 9% compared to 2019."

Strikes and traffic jams at the airports

O'Leary expects travel in Europe to improve over the summer as airport managements address staff shortages. These cause long queues at some British airports, as well as in Amsterdam, Dublin and Toronto. Airport management is trying to fill jobs as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, cabin crew in Spain announced, that they will go on strike for six days in July. But O'Leary says any disruption caused by the industrial action is likely to be small and insignificant.

He added that there may be a small number of canceled or delayed flights, but he said there was no support for the proposed strike action.