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No more cheap?
Michael O'Leary predicts rising ticket prices
Photo: YVES HERMAN / REUTERS
The boss of the low-cost airline Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, says that flying is "too cheap".
"I find it absurd that every time I fly to [London] Stansted, the train journey to central London is more expensive than the plane ticket," O'Leary said in an interview with the Financial Times.
Flying is "too cheap for what it is." It is likely that flights will become more expensive in the next five years.
O'Leary is thus making a remarkable about-face.
The Irishman is the pioneer of cheap flights in Europe.
For decades, Ryanair baited customers with supposedly ultra-cheap tickets (which often turned out to be not that cheap in the end).
And started price wars with the competition, which O'Leary also liked to mock because of their higher tariffs.
But now Ryanair is also raising its prices: according to O'Leary, from the current average of around 40 euros to 50 to 60 euros per ticket in the medium term.
The main reason for this is a combination of “structurally higher” oil prices and rising environmental taxes.
According to O'Leary, his airline secured most of its kerosene needs for 2022 before Russia invaded Ukraine on the futures market: at a price of 65 US dollars (62 euros) per 159-liter barrel of crude oil.
Nevertheless, higher ticket prices are unavoidable even with Ryanair, said the Irishman.
Rising costs for air traffic controllers and staff are to be expected.
The industry-wide shortage of staff has been causing chaos at many European airports for weeks.
During the corona crisis, numerous airlines and airports, including Lufthansa and Fraport, cut jobs on a large scale.
Now that passengers are returning en masse, companies are struggling to find new employees.
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