Ryanair said on Monday that it had swung to a €197m (£177.8m) loss in the first half of 2020.
Revenue fell by 78% to €1.18bn as traffic fell 80% to 17.1m.
The group said in a statement: “FY21 will continue to be a hugely challenging year for Ryanair. Given the current Covid-19 uncertainty, Ryanair cannot provide FY21 PAT guidance at this time. The Group expects to carry approx. 38m passengers in FY21, although this guidance could be further revised downwards if EU Govts continue to mismanage air travel and impose more uncoordinated travel restrictions or lock downs this winter. The Group expects to record higher losses in H2 than in H1.”
The budget airline also said that it will not be offering refunds for flights in November. Despite the ban on international travel from the UK, Ryanair said if a flight was operating, passengers would not get their money back.
No flights during the lockdown period will be canceled, however, customers will have the option to change their flights free of charge.
Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme, chief executive Michael O’Leary said:
“If a flight is operating then no, we will not be offering refunds. But what customers can avail of is our change facility and we’ve waived the change fee so if they have booking in November they can change it and move it to December or January if needs be. But there won’t be refunds on flights that are operating and travelling.”
Rory Boland, the travel editor at Which?, said: “While Ryanair has recently made some improvements, we still get more complaints about its handling of refunds than any other airline, including from a steady stream of passengers still struggling to get their money back.”
“Trust in travel has taken a battering during the pandemic and questionable claims about an airline’s performance on refunds are hardly going to help matters. Ryanair now risks adding insult to injury by refusing to refund passengers who cannot fly this month because of the latest lockdown. The airline is only offering fee-free transfers to a later flight.”
Ryanair shares (LON: RYA) opened almost 3% lower on Monday morning.