Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said that UK government’s plans for a 14-day quarantine coming into the UK were “idiotic”.
The company said that it had cash reserves of more than €4bn, but expected to record a loss of over €200m in the first quarter, with a smaller loss expected in the second quarter, due to a “substantial decline in traffic and pricing from Covid-19 groundings”.
O’Leary said that he expected to see “deep discounting”. He told CNBC: “Northern Europe, Ireland and the UK will still go to Spain, Portugal on family holidays; they will still go to the beaches. There are very low incidents of Covid in those areas.
“We do think families will still go on the summer holidays once the school holidays come around, but at best we think we are talking about 50% of our normal traveling.
“As the restrictions ease or lose all credibility … I think you will see people returning in quite quick numbers, but mainly on the back of deep price discounting both for the airfares and also for the hotel and accommodation packages.”
Commenting on the UK’s quarantine plans, O’Leary said: “We are in dialogue with the government but government have no idea what they are talking about.
“You ask senior government ministers in the UK to define what the 14-day isolation period will be, they can’t. They say it is based on science but then (they) can’t explain why you’re exempting the Irish and the French.”
The carrier said that its expected to carry less than 80 million passengers in full-year 2021 (almost 50% below its original 154 million target).
The company said: “Ryanair’s return to scheduled flying will be rendered significantly more difficult by competing with flag carrier airlines who will be financing below cost selling with the benefit of over €30bn in unlawful State Aid, in breach of both EU State Aid and competition rules.
“As we look beyond the next year, there will be significant opportunities for Ryanair's low cost, growth model as competitors shrink, fail or are acquired by government bailed out carriers.
“When group airlines return to scheduled flying from July, the competitive landscape in Europe will be distorted by unprecedented quantums of State Aid (in breach of EU rules) under which over €30bn has been gifted to the Lufthansa Group, Air France-KLM, Alitalia, SAS and Norwegian among others. We therefore expect that traffic on reduced flight schedules will be subject to significant price discounting, and below cost selling, from these flag carriers with huge State Aid war chests. “