The price of flying will continue to rise, even with Ryanair

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The emptiest plane I’ve ever flown on was an All Nippon Airways flight from Tokyo to London in June 2020 amid the pandemic. It was a Boeing 777-300 with about 250 passenger seats, of which four were occupied: in airline parlance, it had a load factor of less than 2 percent.

We crossed continents like a ghost flight, attendees devoutly sticking to their usual in-flight routines, walking through the rows of empty seats to confirm that nothing was wrong. Flight ANA-211 It was a fragile link between Japan and the UK on days when many passenger flights stopped – I booked last minute and tickets were memorably cheap.

The flights are now much more complete and the fares are higher. When I returned to Japan earlier this year, the direct rates had doubled, and I went online in Hong Kong to save. Ditto for short-haul flights as people eagerly book for summer holidays: Ryanair, now the European leader largest airlinethis week reported strong bookings, and easyJet has made the same.

With stronger demand and higher jet fuel costs, prices have become more sticky. ryanair taken 16mn passengers in April, more than the same month in 2019, and its planes were 94 percent full. Its fares are up 10% from pre-COVID-19 levels and the airline’s famous €9.99 fees (before paying for baggage and better seats) are a fading memory.

Airlines are notoriously cyclical and prone to losing money: the industry as a whole lost $138 billion in the annus horribilis of 2020, when I took the ghost flight to London. Even in good times, the margins are slim. Prices have fallen in real terms for decades because they keep buying new planes (Ryanair has tidy up to 300 Boeing 737-Max 10) and trying to fill them up.

Despite this, I believe industry warnings that we will have to pay more to fly: “We are in a whole different world where airfares are going up,” said one executive. he told the FT this week. Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive, can continue to squeeze rivals with his “lowest cost wins” motto, but the customer won’t feel that way.

With restrictions lifted, people want to fly again: “Short-haul flights have come back to life due to pent-up demand,” he says frankie o’connell, Professor of Air Transport at the University of Surrey. They must deal with fewer and stronger carriers: Ryanair flights were about to 80 percent full a decade ago, but now seats are scarcer.

These airlines can not only charge more; soon they will have to. The industry faces a great technological challenge to meet its self-imposed goal to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. It is impossible to do so in the current flight path, as aviation accounts for about 2.5 percent of global emissions, and moving to another will be extremely expensive.

Ryanair exemplifies the traditional approach: it continues to grow but tries to curb its environmental impact by replacing aging planes with modern, fuel-efficient twin-engine jets. He fiance this week that people switching to their flights from other airlines could cut their emissions by up to 50 percent due to what it calls its “game-changing” fleet of newer 737s.

Well, up to a point. It is true that these types of aircraft help reduce emissions per passenger, but it is a slow process. The last of Ryanair’s new Boeings is about to be delivered in 2033, only 17 years before the net-zero target, and efficiency can only partially mitigate growth. Some 10 billion passenger trips are expected in 2050, five times the volume of 2021.

There is little chance of moving to electric or hydrogen-powered aviation anytime soon: Airbus intends to fly a zero-emission hydrogen plane by 2035, but €300 billion of investment would be needed to build the infrastructure in Europe alone, according to a report. study. found this week. Even then, taxes on jet fuel would be needed to make hydrogen flight competitive.

The best bet in the medium term is sustainable aviation fuel, made from used oils, greases and non-food crops. The industry counts on SAF for two-thirds of the contribution to achieve its net zero target. But it will be difficult and expensive to produce enough: Dave Calhoun, Boeing CEO, warns that biofuels “will never reach the price of jet fuel”.

There is an iron logic in all this: flying is going to be expensive. I’m sorry, in many ways. Aviation is wonderful for vacationing in interesting places and exploring the world, despite crowded airports and cramped seats. But steering wheels haven’t carried the full environmental price, even with carbon offsets, so something has to give.

Pricing can be powerful, as the growth in flights fueled by low-cost airlines shows. The French government has decreed the prohibition of domestic flights of less than two and a half hours between cities well connected by train. France is an outlier, but the higher fares could have a similar impact elsewhere by squeezing short-haul flights, where there is a decent alternative.

For my part, next week I’m going to Amsterdam by train. The Dutch government has been blocked by a court to stop flights to Schiphol airport, and it would have been cheaper to fly. One day, it may not be.

john.gapper@ft.com