Ryanair CEO expects to return to pre-COVID profit levels in 2022

Ryanair expects to return to pre-COVID profit levels this year or next but the recovery remains fragile and could still be knocked off course by oil prices, geopolitics or an Omicron wave, Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said on Monday.

O’Leary was speaking after his airline, Europe’s largest by passenger numbers, posted a profit of 170 million euros ($174 million) for the three months to the end of June, the first quarter of its financial year.

That was well short of the 243 million euro profit in the same quarter of 2019, when it flew 15% fewer passengers, but ahead of the 157 million forecast in a company poll of analysts.