Ryanair stands out among European rivals for being bigger today than before the pandemic

Europe’s Ryanair delivered another exceptionally strong financial result during the October-to-December quarter, helped by flying with higher capacity than it did in 2019. Its operating margin reached 7%, topping the 5% it achieved in the same quarter of 2019, prior to the Covid crisis. Last week, rival EasyJet disclosed a negative 8% operating margin for the same three months of 2022. Wizz Air’s figure was negative 17%. The December quarter is generally a sluggish one for demand within Europe. In the preceding quarter of 2022 (July-September), which includes the busy summer holiday season, Ryanair’s operating margin was 35%. The low-cost airline, based in Dublin, did say it would lose money in the current January-to-March quarter, which does not include the Easter holiday this year. Higher labor costs are a factor as well. But calendar year Q1 losses will likely prove immaterial. More importantly, bookings for the Easter holiday and the summer tourist season appear strong, just as they were during the winter holidays last quarter. Fares are up, competitors are retreating, and Ryanair is gaining market share in key markets like Italy, Poland, Spain, and its home market Ireland. Ryanair is flying more capacity now than it was prior to Covid, enabled in part by a decision to retain planes and crews during even the depths of the downturn. Its growth has helped keep unit costs roughly where they were before Covid, thanks to economies of scale. Also helping on the cost side are its new Boeing MAX jets. The airline remains concerned that it won’t get as many more of these as it wants before the peak summer, due to Boeing’s production bottlenecks. Ryanair ended 2022 with 84 MAX-8200s, out of a total fleet of 523 planes. Twenty eight of these were Airbus narrowbodies.<br/>