Ryanair warns of winter capacity cuts as fuel costs squeeze European airlines

Ryanair has signalled that Europe’s winter airline market is heading for a squeeze, cutting two million passengers from its full-year target and trimming winter flying as fuel costs surge, while warning that carriers with weaker hedges may struggle to keep aircraft in the air if the oil shock lasts into next summer. The move comes after the latest escalation in the Iran war drove crude and jet fuel sharply higher and kept attention fixed on disruption around the Strait of Hormuz. (<...

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The Dublin-based carrier said on 2 September that it now expects to carry 214 million passengers in the financial year to March 2027, down from 216 million. Rather than chase winter growth, it plans to keep traffic from November to March broadly flat year on year, arguing that higher spot fuel prices threaten the economics of weaker seasonal routes. In its filing with US regulators, Ryanair said jet fuel was trading at about $140 a barrel, against hedges covering 80% of its needs through March 2027 at roughly $67 a barrel. The company said the “one-off winter schedule cut” should trim winter losses by between €70 million and €100 million, depending on fares and demand. (sec.gov)

What makes the announcement notable is that Ryanair says the cuts are not yet fully visible in the published timetable. Aviation Week, citing OAG Schedules Analyser data, reported that Ryanair and Ryanair UK were still showing about 83.7 million scheduled seats for winter 2026-27, 7.6% more than a year earlier, even after the carrier’s warning. That filing showed expansion concentrated in Italy, Poland, the UK and Albania, while Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands and Austria were already moving the other way. Italy alone was up 15.9%, or roughly 2.6 million seats, and Albania capacity had more than doubled, led by Ryanair’s newer Tirana base. (aviationweek.com)

Part of the retrenchment had already begun in Belgium. Reuters reported that Ryanair removed five aircraft from its Charleroi base in July and cut two million seats from its Brussels programme for winter 2026 and summer 2027. Charleroi airport said at the time that the decision followed an increase in the embarkation tax, adding a political dimension to what Ryanair is now presenting mainly as a fuel-driven reshaping of capacity. The airport said it regretted the decision and would keep talking to the airline in an effort to limit the impact on travellers and workers. (marketscreener.com)

The network pruning stretches beyond Belgium. TravelMole reported that Ryanair has closed its Thessaloniki base and withdrawn several Greek routes, including Athens-Milan Malpensa and Chania-Paphos, while some seasonal services to Crete have also been dropped. Travel Radar said earlier cuts in France amounted to 25 routes and 750,000 seats, including the end of services to Strasbourg and Brive, and that reductions had also reached Spain and Portugal, with all flights to the Azores suspended. TravelMole added that Germany and some regional airports in the UK had already seen route losses as well, reflecting a broader effort to move aircraft away from weaker or higher-cost markets. (travelmole.com)

That caution on winter comes despite a strong summer. Ryanair carried 22.2 million passengers in August, up 6% on a year earlier, with a load factor of 96%, according to its 2 September filing. It operated more than 120,500 flights in the month, although more than 400 were cancelled because of eruptions at Mount Etna. Rolling annual traffic reached 214.4 million passengers. The airline said it was still on course to carry 145 million passengers between April and October, up from 138 million a year earlier, even as second-quarter fares were trending modestly lower. (sec.gov)

Ryanair’s warning matters because, by industry standards, it is relatively well protected. A Reuters factbox published a day later showed easyJet had hedged 62% of its jet fuel needs for the first half of 2027 and 37% for the second half, while Air France-KLM was 40% hedged for 2027 and SAS had previously said it had no fuel consumption hedged for the following 12 months after temporarily adjusting policy. Reuters also quoted Davy analyst Stephen Furlong describing Ryanair’s decision as “proactive management”, adding to expectations that other airlines may prefer capacity discipline to a winter fare war if fuel stays elevated. (marketscreener.com)

For now, Ryanair says it should still remain profitable this year, though below the record achieved in fiscal 2026, and that it is too early to give meaningful profit guidance. Its bigger message is about what happens next: if oil prices remain high into summer 2027, the airline says European short-haul fares are likely to rise materially as the industry passes on fuel costs and weaker competitors struggle to respond. Ryanair said it would provide its next update with first-half results in November. (sec.gov)

Source: Noah Wire Services