Ryanair swings to profit on European travel rebound

Ryanair has announced it returned to profit in the year to March 31, narrowly beating market expectations, and said it expected further improvements in the coming year. Pre-tax profits for the Dublin-based low-cost airline were E1.44bn on revenues of E10.8b, against a E430m loss and E4.8b of revenues in the year to March 2022. Profit after tax but before exceptionals — the company’s preferred measure — was E1.43b, compared with a E355m loss a year before. Analysts expected a figure between E1.32b and E1.42b. The figures are the latest evidence of a rebound in the European airline industry and of Ryanair’s particularly strong post-Covid recovery. It carried 169mn passengers in the financial year, against 97m a year before. The figure for the year to March 2023 was 13% above the figure for the year to March 2020, before Covid disruption set in. Ryanair’s load factor — the proportion of seats filled on its flights — recovered to 93%, against 82% for the year to March 2022. CFO Neil Sorahan said the company had a “rebound” in traffic after a “difficult” April-to-June quarter last year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We saw traffic across the remaining quarters increase quite significantly,” he said. Costs — at E31 per passenger excluding fuel — were back down to pre-Covid levels, but fares were higher thanks to strong demand and tight capacity across the sector. “Fares were trending about 10% ahead of pre-Covid levels,” Sorahan said. Ryanair projected further growth in passenger numbers and profits in the year to March 2024, saying it expected to carry 185mn passengers in the year. However, it also said it expected higher market prices would increase the company’s fuel bill for the year by more than E1b, despite deliveries of more fuel-efficient 737 Max jets.<br/>