Ryanair: business travel segment not dead

LONDON - Ryanair expects to break even this year followed by a dynamic recovery in 2022. The airline already sees demand returning with an upswing in bookings through April. In an interview with the "Financial Times" Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary showed confidence in the business travel segment after the crisis.

Ryanair expects business travellers to return to its planes. The segment accounts for abouth a third of Ryanair bookings in normal times.

"All of these predictions business travel is dead . . . they generally always prove to be wrong," O'Leary told a conference held by the "Financial Times". "There is going to be a dramatic (...) recovery in what I would call short-haul business travel, people out there meeting suppliers, visiting suppliers they haven’t seen for a year."

Ryanair expects to break even in the 2021/2022 year as bookings recently surged from 400.000 to 700.000 per week. O'Leary said earlier that vaccination progress and easing travel restrictions in Spain and Greece will help stimulate summer damand.