Ryanair has today reported a 55% rise in first quater profit to €397m. This result is distorted by the timing of Easter in the first quarter with no holiday period in the prior year comparative.
Traffic grew 12% to 35m as Ryanair’s lower fares and “Always Getting Better” (AGB) programme delivered a record 96% load factor.
Ryanair’s balance sheet remains one of the strongest in the industry. In May, the Board approved a €600m ordinary share buyback programme. The airline continues to invest heavily in Travel Labs, and recently opened its 3rd Lab facility in Madrid which will see us hire up to 250 highly skilled digital professionals in Spain over the next 2 years. This follows on from the doubling in size of the team in Travel Labs Poland to almost 200 IT professionals earlier this year.
Furthermore, Ryanair opened new bases in Frankfurt Main (opened in March) and Naples (April) which are performing well with strong advance bookings at low fares. The Frankfurt Main base will increase from 2 to 7 aircraft in Sept. Ryanair will launch 2 new bases in Memmingen (Munich) & Poznan in the autumn and open 170 new routes for winter ’17.
In May, Ryanair launched flight connections at Rome Fiumicino and in July extended it to Milan Bergamo. The airline has started selling Air Europa long-haul flights from Madrid on its website and has become the exclusive airline partner of the EU Erasmus Student Network. This partnership will enable Erasmus students to benefit from exclusive flight discounts to suit their budget and will be available from August.
Commenting on today's results, Ryanair CEO, Michael O'Leary said, "We remain concerned at the uncertainty which surrounds the terms of the UK’s departure from the EU in March ’19. While we continue to campaign for the UK to remain in the EU Open Skies agreement, we caution that should the UK leave, there may not be sufficient time, or goodwill on both sides, to negotiate a timely replacement bilateral which could result in a disruption of flights between the UK and Europe for a period of time from April ’19 onwards."
He added, "We, like all airlines, seek clarity on this issue before we publish our summer 2019 schedule in the second quarter of 2018. If we do not have certainty about the legal basis for the operation of flights between the UK and the EU by autumn 2018, we may be forced to cancel flights and move some, or all, of our UK based aircraft to Continental Europe from April ’19 onwards. We have contingency plans in place and will, as always, adapt to changed circumstances in the best interests of our customers and shareholders."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
