Ryanair flights will get even CHEAPER this summer, as airlines battle over customers
The price cuts are partly fuelled by competition from other low-cost airlines and low oil prices
THE cost of Ryanair flights are set to fall even further in the next few months.
The budget airline revealed that fares could be cut by as much as ten per cent from last year on some routes during late summer.
Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said that it was expecting fares to drop by five per cent in the six-month period from now until September, and eight per cent in the following period to March 2018.
The price cuts are partly fuelled by competition from other low-cost airlines.
Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorahan also said that the fall in average fares was due to lower fuel prices.
The airline said that its fuel bill had dropped in recent months and that it has also secured a good deal on oil per barrel for the upcoming months.
But much is also due to over-capacity in Spain, Portugal and Italy as charter carriers shift capacity away from Turkey and North Africa.
Ryanair also warned once again of the impact of Brexit on the UK flight industry, threatening to move the airline’s UK-based aircraft to continental Europe.
Ryanair's chief commercial officer David O'Brien said: "If we do not have certainty about the legal basis for the operation of flights between the UK and the EU by autumn 2018, we may be forced to cancel flights and move some, or all, of our UK based aircraft to Continental Europe from April 2019 onwards."
Britain's airline industry has soared over the past two decades under the Single European Sky system, which lifted trade restrictions on EU airlines.
Unless British negotiators manage to secure preferential conditions, airlines could lose this status once the country leaves the EU.