If you are one of those who, seeing how inflation has been slightly contained in the eurozone in the last two months, thought that perhaps flying could be a little cheaper in summer, forget it. Airline ticket prices will continue to rise. And whoever says so is not exactly suspected of ignoring the air sector and of pressing prices, but rather the Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson, the European “low cost” company par excellence. Although, as Wilson says, “it is not that we are low cost, but rather the cheapest company to travel with.”
Wilson, who receives LA RAZÓN just before signing the first collective agreement with the airline’s Spanish pilots, assures that prices rose last summer “in double digits. And maybe this one too, although it’s too early to tell.”. What he is sure of is that “with inflation and the reduction in air capacity, prices are tending to rise and will continue to rise.” Although, as he warns, “We are going to continue being the cheapest company to travel”hence they expect a lot of people to migrate and travel to Ryanair. The airline closed February with 10.6 million passengers, two more than in 2022; and a load factor of 92%, six points above last year.
Worse, says Wilson, other companies have it in whose DNA it is not to offer cheap flights. Speaking of other airlines and the sector in general, the CEO of Ryanair considers that the recent purchase of Air Europa by Iberia, although it makes perfect sense, what it has to cause is “that they can release “slots” -time slots that are assigned to airlines for takeoffs and landings- at different airports, especially in Madrid, the Balearic Islands or the Canary Islands; which are regions in which this merger will have the greatest impact. What we want and what we ask for is that these “slots” be released and that there be a free option to opt for them. That it is not Iberia that decides which companies it gives them to and that company X in three years buys it and absorbs that market again, “says Wilson in relation to the plans that Iberia showed to cede “slots” to other airlines. for the EU to approve the merger. «We support consolidation, but not at the expense of the free market. They have to release “slots” but it cannot be that Iberia decides who gives those “slots” “, Wilson adds.
Although I support it, Ryanair does not seem very keen on getting involved in this consolidation. Wilson believes the airline has enough of a market to continue to grow organically in Europe. His bet is that the two companies now looking for suitors, ITA and TAP, will end up in the hands of Lufthansa and IAG, Iberia’s parent company, respectively. And that the Portuguese Government does not seem very willing lately to deliver its airline to the Spanish-British conglomerate. “TAP seems like the perfect match for IAG. Iberia is very strong in Latin America and TAP is strong in the long haul to Brazil, so it seems like the perfect complement. If TAP ended up in the hands of Lufthansa or Air France-KLM, what it would do would be to divert many flights to Frankfurt or Paris. What makes the most sense is that he stays in the Iberian Peninsula, ”Wilson reasons.
spain
As far as Spain is concerned, and despite the price increase Wilson is talking about, Ryanair predicts a good summer. “Reservations are going very well and it looks like we are going to have a positive summer”, says. The company does indeed intend to increase by 11% the frequencies for the season. In addition, adds its CEO, “We are going to open two new bases, Tenerife Sur and Lanzarote, and we are going to put 92 planes, 14 more than last summer”. From Wilson’s words it can be deduced that, in the medium term, Ryanair will grow more in Spain. The manager assures that the fact that Aena has frozen rates until 2027 is to be appreciated because “It gives us stability in the medium term, which allows us to keep costs low and continue increasing frequency and route capacity”.
The airline has just taken a very important step in Spain to maintain social peace with its staff with the signing of the first collective agreement with its pilots, which it hopes will continue in the next twelve months that of cabin crew since, according to Wilson, it is a rather “laborious and slow” process. For the moment, he recalls that they have signed three agreements, although only with CC OO, which has led to the rejection of the rest of the union organizations, which have held strikes for months.