“We will pay for tickets as if we were paying for pills.” The head of Ryanair in Poland is sounding the alarm

Neither the pandemic nor the war in Ukraine nor skyrocketing prices everywhere have put an end to cheap flying. – Of course, ticket prices this year are higher than in the summer of 2022. However, they had reached a certain level and stabilized – said Michal Kaczmarzyk, President of Ryanair in Poland, in response to a question from money.pl. What shapes are they? One of the main factors is the price of jet fuel.

According to the International Air Transport Association IATA. With the price of Brent crude reaching around $86. A barrel of jet fuel costs more than $122 in Europe. The price of one ton of jet fuel is about $965. Katzmarzyk also mentions higher fees for air traffic control agencies and higher airport fees, especially at ports in southern Europe, popular holiday destinations.

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Is it only temporary? not necessarily. – Once someone raises fees to airlines, they won’t check them “down”. The same goes for jet fuel: it’s more expensive, but it’s sold all the time, so the price is maintained. Kazmaric added.

Michael O’Leary, Group CEO of Ryanair, recently announced that the low-cost airline will strive to maintain high load capacity for its aircraft and stimulate the market with prices. This means keeping prices low so that demand for aviation does not drop. Concerns about this are caused by the economic situation and the fact that there is less money in consumers’ wallets.

According to Michal Katzmarzyk There is another real threat on the horizon that could lead to higher ticket prices, despite the current stability.

The Warsaw agglomeration is the largest aviation market in Poland. According to data from the Civil Aviation Office, last year Chopin Airport and Warsaw Modlin Airport screened more than 17.5 million passengers. This is almost half of all passengers in the entire country, and 41 million of them are registered.

But Chopin and Warsaw-Modlin airports face the problem of missing capacity. The epidemic will temporarily rule out the possibility of a “blockage” of the country’s largest airport. However, air traffic is recovering faster than previously expected.

– If they do nothing, in a year or two further growth in Warsaw will be blocked. Chopin airport will reach its maximum capacity, and the port of Modlin has already reached it, Katzmarzyk warns.

The demand for aviation will remain high, but it will not be possible to respond to it with more communications. And what will happen next? Prices will go up. Who will suffer? Passengers, because they will pay for tickets from Warsaw like grain – confirms the head of Ryanair in Poland.

Currently, Ryanair flies from Chopin Airport 16 times a week on five scheduled routes (Vienna, Brussels, Alicante, Paphos, Palma de Mallorca) and 10 times a week on travel agency charter flights.

– We are satisfied with the results at Chopin Airport. We got a lot of places for the winter, but there is no guarantee that we will extend it for the summer. “That’s why, in the winter, we’re definitely not going to use all the vents,” Katzmarzyk said.

The apple of Ryanair’s eye is the airport in Modlin, where almost all passengers are. We are talking about more than 3 million passengers each year. – In Modlin, we want to increase the number of passengers to 6 million passengers per year – Katzmarzyk added.

However, the obstacle lies in the lack of consensus among the shareholders of this airport regarding the expansion of the terminal and the provision of additional parking spaces. Polish Airports, which also owns Chopin Airport and the port in Radom, believes that this will be an investment for one airline only and will not translate into an improvement in the profitability of the airport near Warsaw.

Polish airports opened the new Warsaw Radom Airport, 100 kilometers from the capital. From the end of April to mid-August, 60,000 people were served there. Passengers. However, neither Ryanair nor Wizz Air fly them. Both carriers “made themselves at home” at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport, the home base of LOT Polish Airlines.

In 2021, the administrative division of traffic in Mazovia was abandoned, so today no airline can be forced to fly from the new airport in Radom instead of Chopin. LOT decided to do so, and Enter Air also launched charter flights.

When we asked PPL press office representatives about Ryanair’s concerns about depleted capacity at Chopin, “I invite you to the airport in Radom, which is ready to accept more aircraft.”

Will Ryanair benefit from an invitation to fly from Radom? – No comment – cut short Katzmarzyk.