Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has scoffed at current industry predictions that it will take three or more years to see a post-COVID recovery in demand for air travel.
Speaking at the World Travel Market Conference, the Irish billionaire and budget airline chief executive instead said he predicted an “enormous” bounce-back in demand and called more conservative estimates of recovery “rubbish”.
O’Leary conceded that the European winter travel season would be “a write-off”, consistent with a previous statement made by the Ryanair CEO. However, O’Leary claimed there’s going to be “an enormous snapback on travel demand” by the summer season.
“I’ve heard a lot of rubbish coming from legacy airlines that it’ll be 2035 till the volumes come back. Rubbish. Volumes will go back in 2021 or 2022 pretty quickly.”
The Ryanair chief executive’s comments fly in the face of current industry predictions, including that of the International Air Transport Association, which has said it doesn’t expect to see international air traffic return to pre-COVID levels until 2024.
O’Leary said his predictions were based on COVID-19 vaccines being “widely available to high-risk groups” by March next year, in light of the recent news of a successful vaccine developed by Pfizer.
“There’s going to be a wave of vaccines coming at us, certainly licensed this side of Christmas, widely available for high-risk groups by the end of Q1 [March 2021]
“In short-haul, I see no reason why we won’t go back to 75 to 80 per cent of 2019.”
He added: “There’s a real sense of optimism that we’ll get the high risk groups, over-70s, healthcare workers, essential services covered off in advance of summer 2021. Then it’s a case of how quickly can the airlines recover and get capacity back in the air.”
O’Leary said that “the only restriction” on airlines following his predicted recovery will be their ability to re-hire and train pilots and cabin crew that may not still be current, which is why Ryanair has worked to keep crew and aircraft current and ready to go.
“We’re keeping the pilots current, we’re keeping the cabin crew current, we’re keeping the aircraft current, so really we can pounce on growth.”
