Ryanair has forecast a loss of €350-400m for its recently ended financial year, having previously predicted that it would lose between €250m and €450m for the full year, ending on 31 March.

The budget airline said traffic for the past 12 months totalled 97m at an 82% load factor, more than tripling from the low of 27.5m (71% load factor) in 2020-21 but still substantially off pre-Covid passenger totals of 149m.

In March, Ryanair carried 11.2m passengers with its services operating at an average capacity of 87%, making it the company's best month since last October when it carried 11.3m customers at an 84% load factor.

The typically busy winter months saw passenger numbers fall as restrictions tightened once again in reaction to the Omicron wave, with the Irish carrier carrying 10.2m people in November, 9.5m in December, 7m in January, and 8.7m in February with load factors of 79-86%.

Ryanair cancelled some 2,000 flights to and from Ukraine in March following Russia's invasion of the country, but the company operated over 67,800 flights at an average of 87% capacity.

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In a market update on Monday following the end of its financial year last week, Ryanair said its balance sheet is "one of the strongest in [the aviation] sector" due its stable BBB credit rating and lower net debt of €1.5bn, down from €2.3bn last year.

The company also said that it has hedged 80% of its fuel for the new financial year between jet swaps at $630 per metric tonne (65%) and caps at $775 per metric tonne (15%) and that 10% of its fuel for the first half of the next financial year has also been hedged via jet swaps at $760 per metric tonne.

Ryanair will release its results for 2021-22 financial year on 16 May. The forecasted annual loss would be an improvement on last year when the airline lost €815m.

(Pic: Ryanair)