Ryanair’s country manager for Spain and Portugal, Elena Cabrera, hopes that the prices of plane tickets can “stabilize or go up a bit” in the coming months after the significant increases experienced for more than a year.
This was stated by Cabrera in an interview with Servimedia, where he assured that “we want to continue being the leading company and the cheapest to travel”, defending that its prices have risen moderately.
Specifically, he indicated that the average price of Ryanair flights is now around 41 euros, around 10% more than before the coronavirus pandemic, when it was around 37 euros.
Regarding the company’s forecasts, he stated that “we have ambitious growth plans”. Thus, according to him, Ryanair wants to reach 185 million passengers this year (between April 2023 and March 2024), with 52 million in Spain, compared to 50 million the previous year. “We want to continue increasing our market share in Europe,” he added.
In addition, he stressed that “Spain is a very important market for the company and we hope to continue growing”. In fact, he did not rule out that it could become the main market for Ryanair, surpassing Italy, a country for which he expects to reach 56 million passengers this year.
Regarding the operation this summer, he assessed that the activity “is recovering very well in all senses and the sector in general is very positive.” “We are having a very good summer and we in particular are having occupancy rates of 95%”, he added before concluding that “the recovery is really going very fast”.
In Spain, Ryanair is offering 60 new routes this summer and has just opened two new bases in Tenerife and Lanzarote, bringing it to 12. In addition, it operates in another 15 airports. “For now, there are no plans to open new bases,” said Cabrera.
Finally, the head of Ryanair in Spain appreciated the agreement reached with the pilots to sign the first collective agreement and expressed her confidence to be able to close this year the one for cabin crew (TCP) with CCOO, a union that after the recent elections unions have a majority presence in the company’s committees.
