Ryanair Holdings has announced a net profit of €190m for the April to June 2022 period, the first quarter of the airline’s financial year.
Revenue for the period was €2.6bn compared with just €370m a year earlier, when most of the airline’s markets in Europe were subject to Covid travel restrictions.
Operating profit in the quarter was €240m, for an operating margin of 9.2%.
The airline said the average load factor on flights was 92% compared with 73% a year ago.
Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary stressed Ryanair’s improved fuel efficiency.
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“This summer we are operating 73 new B737 aircraft, delivering 4% more seats yet burning 16% less fuel and cutting noise emissions by up to 40%,” he said.
O’Leary added that pay restoration agreements have been agreed with unions representing 80% of the airline’s pilots and c.70% of cabin crews across Europe.
“We and our trade union partners are committed to completing the restoration of these agreed pay cuts, which enabled Ryanair to minimise job losses during the Covid-19 pandemic, at a time when our competitor airlines cut thousands of high skilled jobs,” he stated.
“Ryanair seems unusual among the major EU airlines in summer 22, insofar as we are fully crewed, despite operating at 115% of our pre-Covid capacity. Our business, our schedules and our customers are being disrupted by unprecedented ATC and airport handling delays, but we remain confident that we can operate almost 100% of our scheduled flights.
“Structural capacity reductions have created enormous growth opportunities for Ryanair to deploy our new B737 aircraft, and our market share has increased significantly across major markets in Europe.
“Thanks to our 210 B737 order book, and available fleet capacity, the Ryanair Group expects to grow from 149m (pre-Covid) passengers to over 225m p.a. by FY26.”
O’Leary also indicated that service improvements will be introduced over the coming months, including auto check-in and airport express to facilitate faster journeys through airports.
O’Leary said that Ryanair is hopeful that the high rate of vaccinations in Europe will allow the airline and tourism industry to fully recover from Covid impacts. However, he added that the risk of new Covid variants in autumn 2022 cannot be ignored.
“Our experience with Omicron last November, and the Ukraine invasion in February, shows how fragile the air travel market remains, and the strength of any recovery will be hugely dependent upon there being no adverse or unexpected developments over the remainder of FY23," the CEO stated.
"While there are clear signs of pent-up demand, bookings remain closer-in than was the norm (pre-Covid) at this time of year. We have limited visibility into the second half of Q2 and almost zero visibility into H2, when we are typically loss making.
“Despite being one of the best hedged airlines in Europe, high oil prices will lead to increased costs on our 20% unhedged fuel for the remainder of FY23. Given our later booking profile, the lack of visibility, volatile oil prices, potential Covid, and geopolitical and supply chain risks, it is too soon to provide meaningful FY23 profit guidance at this time.”
