Ryanair Holdings PLC (LSE:RYA) cut its guidance for the current year to a net loss of between €250mln and €450mln, compared with a loss range of €100mln-€200mln forecast previously.
The full-year traffic forecast was also cut to just under 100mln passengers from the previous forecast of just over 100mln.
The Irish budget airline said its Christmas and New Year bookings have been hit by the Omicron variant of Coronavirus (COVID-19) and new travel restrictions across Europe, causing it to cut its planned January schedule capacity by 33%.
Following the ban on UK arrivals into France and Germany and the suspension of all EU flights to and from Morocco, Ryanair lowered its expected December traffic to 9mln-9.5mln from 10mln-11mln before. Its January traffic forecast has been reduced to 6mln-7mln from 10mln.
The airline has not yet changed its schedules for February and March in view of the uncertainty about the Omicron variant, but said it will revisit these when more scientific information about Omicron and its impact on travel becomes available.
Ryanair stressed that its forecasts are “hugely sensitive to any further positive or negative Covid news flow” and said it hopes to have more clarity on the impact of Omicron on intra-Europe travel restrictions in time for its third-quarter results, which will be published on 31 January.