Irish airline Ryanair reported nearly four-fold net profit in its staggered first quarter to 663 million euros on Monday, driven by increased traffic and despite rising costs.
The airline benefited in particular from a strong performance over the Easter holidays, an additional public holiday granted in May in the UK for the coronation of King Charles III, and a comparison with a quarter more “affected by the war in Ukraine” last year, it said in a press release.
Ryanair saw the number of passengers grow by 11% in one year to 50.4 million in the quarter ending at the end of June and at the same time increased its prices (the average price billed per person rises 27% in one year), which caused its operating income to skyrocket by 40% to 3,650 million euros. At the same time, the company saw its operating costs increase by 23%, due in particular to an increase of almost a third in its fuel and personnel costs.
Up to 600,000 daily passengers are expected this summer
However, if the company is currently operating “the biggest summer schedule ever: more than 3,200 flights and up to 600,000 passengers per day”, Ryanair also warns that robust demand dynamics and price increases “look weaker in the second quarter”.
And “we expect traffic for the entire year to increase to around 183.5 million passengers (+9%)”, somewhat less than initially forecast, “due to delays in Boeing deliveries in the spring and fall of 2023,” the company specifies.
Source: BFM TV
