Ryanair swung to profit in its first quarter, but the spread of Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine continued to weigh on the low-cost airline’s performance and outlook for the year.

The Dublin-based carrier posted profit before exceptional items of €170mn in the three months to June, up from a loss of €273mn in the same period last year.

However, the airline’s performance was still below pre-pandemic levels. Ryanair posted a profit of €243mn in the first quarter of the 2020 fiscal year prior to the spread of Covid-19.

Europe’s largest low-cost carrier said passenger numbers had recovered to 45.5mn in the first quarter, against 8.1mn for the same period in 2021.

“While we remain hopeful that the high rate of vaccinations in Europe will allow the airline and tourism industry to fully recover and finally put Covid behind us, we cannot ignore the risk of new Covid variants in autumn 2022,” Ryanair said.

“Our experience with Omicron last November and the Ukraine invasion in February shows how fragile the air travel market remains,” it added.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February affected Easter bookings and fares, which were down 4 per cent on the same quarter before the pandemic.