By Kate Abnett and Bart Biesemans
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Ryanair no longer sees a risk of double-digit percentage falls in average fares this summer as weakness has “levelled out,” Group CEO Michael O’Leary said in an interview on Tuesday.
Shares in the Irish airline plunged 15% last month when O’Leary warned of a downward trend in airfares that could exceed 10% in the airline’s key July-September quarter.
Instead, O’Leary said a fall of 5% during that period now “looks reasonably accurate”.
The risk of what O’Leary at the time called an “ugly scenario” of double-digit falls in average fares “looks like it has disappeared,” O’Leary told Reuters.
“While fares were kind of softening during April, May and June, that has leveled out,” he said.
Asked if Ryanair was still seeing price resistance when it tried to raise prices on last-minute fares, O’Leary said: “It’s not the same price resistance.”
(Reporting by Kate Abnett, Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Kylie MacLellan)
