Profit at Ryanair Group declines 46% with airline citing weaker airfares
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Profit at Ryanair Group fell by 46% during the first three months of its financial year to €360m, with the company citing weaker than expected airfares.
Ryanair Group — which encompasses the Ryanair airline, Buzz Air, Lauda Air, and Malta Air — said overall revenue fell by 1% to €3.63bn, while operating costs increased 11% to €3.26bn. The company said fuel hedge savings offset higher staff and other costs, which was in part due to Boeing delivery delays.
The company’s revenue per passenger fell by 10% compared to last year.
Chief executive of Ryanair Group Michael O’Leary said there was a drop in flights during the quarter owing to Easter being in March. The company also tried to spur demand with “more price stimulation than we had previously expected”.
The company’s average fare in the three months to the end of June was €41.93 — down 15% year-on-year.
However, while the airline saw profit and revenue decline, it was able to grow traffic by 10% during the three months to 55.5 million despite multiple delivery delays from the airplane-maker Boeing.
The company said it had 156 Boeing 737 aircraft in its fleet which it expected to increase to more than 160 by the end of July. However, this 20 fewer than were supposed to be delivered.
Mr O’Leary said work continued with Boeing and they had “noted an improvement in the quality and frequency of deliveries” over the last few months.
However, he added there remained a risk the remaining Boeing deliveries could “slip further” and their focus is on ensuring a timely delivery of the remaining 50 aircraft by summer next year.
In its outlook for the remainder of its financial year, Ryanair said traffic is expected to grow 8% to 200 million passengers but Mr O’Leary said this was “subject to no worsening Boeing delivery delays”.
Mr O’Leary said while demand remains strong over the coming months, “pricing remains softer than we expected” and it now expected fares between July and September to be “materially lower than last summer”.
He added it was too early to provide a “meaningful” profit-after-tax guidance for the financial year 2025 but it hoped to do so during its half-results presentation in November.
Ryanair Group commenced a €700m share buyback in May and to date 50% of the programme has been completed.