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Louise Thomas

Editor

Ryanair expects air fares will continue to fall by around 5 per cent as passenger demand slumps.

“More people are flying with us this summer at lower fares,” said Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Europe’s biggest budget airline.

“Good news for our passengers, bad news for our shareholders.”

Ryanair, like other carriers, had seen double-digit growth in the first two summers since the Covid pandemic. Earlier this year the chief executive, Michael O’Leary, predicted average summer fares would rise by 5 to 10 per cent. But his current expectation is that the peak quarter from July to September will be be down 5 per cent.

Mr O’Leary said while he had “no idea” how fares would turn out, he added: “It is reasonable to expect that fares will be down 5 per cent for the rest of the [financial] year.” That ends on 31 March 2025.

The Ryanair boss demanded that the new Labour government scrap Air Passenger Duty (APD).

The tax on aircraft departing from most UK airports ranges from £7 for domestic flights in economy class to £202 in business class for the longest flights.

“You can have lots of growth in air travel here – all you’ve got to do is scrap APD,” he said. “APD tax is blocking UK growth.”

Michael O’Leary also reiterated his call for the European Commission to improve air-traffic control (ATC) service.

He said: “The number of ATC staff shortages have trebled.

“They have enough staff, they just won’t roster them on the first wave.”

Airlines are extremely keen to get the first wave of flights – typically from 6am to 8am – away on time, in order to ensure later flights are punctual.

He said of national air-traffic control services across Europe: “They are particularly bad at covering Saturday and Sunday morning.”

“It is just incompetent management.”

A spokesperson for Eurocontrol – the pan-European air-navigation provider – told The Independent: “As August is not yet over, we can’t provide a full overview of this month’s figures.

“However, what we can say is that in July 2024, traffic in the European aviation network was 4.5 per cent up compared to July 2023, with an average of 34,379 flights per day.

“Compared to 2019, traffic for the month was at 97 per cent. With up to 20 per cent of the network’s airspace unavailable due to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, nearly half of the air navigation service providers are managing exceptional increases in traffic of more than 15 per cent above 2019 levels.

“The numbers show that the air traffic situation today is very different from and more complex than the air traffic situation in 2019. Eurocontrol is working with all aviation partners to address the situation collaboratively.”

Ryanair has also announced new winter destinations from its main base, London Stansted: Sarajevo, Linz, Reggio Calabria and Dubrovnik.

For more travel news and advice, listen to Simon Calder’s podcast

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