Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O'Leary has announced that the budget airline is axing its €10 (£8.50) flights.
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No more 'really cheap promotional fares'
O’Leary told the BBC that the airline's average fare would increase from approximately €40 (£33.75) last year to around €50 over the next five years. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme, as reported by The Guardian:
I don’t think there are going to be €10 flights any more because oil prices are significantly higher as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
There's no doubt that at the lower end of the marketplace, our really cheap promotional fares - the one euro fares, the €0.99 fares, even the €9.99 fares - I think you will not see those fares for the next number of years.
The rise in airfares is due to the increasing cost of fuel. This has also increased household energy bills, meaning people have less disposable income. However, despite the cost of living crisis, O’Leary believes 'people will continue to fly frequently,' choosing lower-cost options rather than not flying at all. He said, as reported by the BBC:
I think people are going to become much more price sensitive and therefore my view of life is that people will trade down in their many millions.
A summer of travel chaos
It comes as multiple airlines are experiencing strikes and having to cancel flights amid staff shortages following the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, Ryanair's Spanish cabin crew are expected to strike weekly from 8 August until 7 January. However, a spokesperson said in a statement, as reported by Reuters:
Ryanair expects that these latest threatened strikes, which involve only a handful of our Spanish cabin crew, will have zero impact on our Spanish flights or schedules in August or September.
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