Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary expects air passenger numbers to bounce back to near normal levels by next summer, rubbishing industry predictions that it could take years for growth to return to pre-pandemic levels. Post- pandemic, O’Leary said, volumes will rise ‘pretty quickly’ during 2021 and 2022.

Admitting this winter was a “write-off”, O’Leary claimed Ryanair was poised “at the dawn of an extraordinary era of growth” with a fleet of new planes due, and the airline would emerge from the pandemic with a strong balance sheet, in a position to offer low fares to stimulate travel.

Speaking at the virtual World travel market conference, O’Leary said, “Airlines that adept quickly, flex the business as quickly as they can, will emerge out of this much stronger and much more able to offer consumers the really low fares that they will want and need to spring the recovery.”

Consumer will return to the air he claimed, “because airlines, led by Ryanair, will discount prices, the hotels will discount prices into the summer of 2021, the winter 2021 into the summer of 2022; we will all discount to try to recover the business we have lost.”

The Ryanair boss admitted it could be three or four years for prices to recover to 2019 levels, but news this week of at least one Covid vaccine on the horizon had created a sense of optimism.

“There is reasonable optimism now that summer 2021 will get back to some degree of normality, we may not get back all the way to 2019, but in short haul I see no reason why we won’t get back to 70%, 80% of 2019,” he added.

He said the biggest challenge would be recruiting and training pilots and crew.

This winter was already ‘a write-off’, but the industry might be able to rescue some business for Christmas, he said. “Then nothing will probably happen until next Easter.”

Meanwhile, Ryanair is in ‘intensive negotiations’ with a number of airports where other airlines have pulled out due to the pandemic. O’Leary said airports realised the only way they were going to return to growth was by working with flexible airlines that can rapidly deploy aircraft and crew.

“What was different about Ryanair and most of our competitors during the crisis is that we kept flying our aircraft. What we have done frantically, and to our cost, is keeping all the aircraft flying, keeping all our pilots and cabin crew current, so that really we can pounce on growth.”

“There’s going to be an enormous snapback on travel demand … Mrs O’Leary is very keen to go back to the Algarve and I suspect she’d be there in 2.5 nanoseconds after the coronavirus restrictions are lifted. I think she’s reflective of the overwhelming majority of Europe’s population, and they will go back,” O’Leary said.

“We’re going to see a surge of that intra-European tourism next year, and we need to be there to provide the capacity at low prices.”