Ryanair Holdings today reported Q1 profits of €663m, compared to a Ukraine affected prior year Q1 PAT of €170m.
Ryanair is operating its largest ever summer schedule (over 3,200 flights and up to 600,000 passengers daily).
Ryanair growth
The company has opened three new bases (Belfast, Lanzarote and Tenerife) and over 190 new routes, further growing their No.1 or No. 2 share in the Italian, Polish, Spanish and UK markets.
Ryanair recently announced plans to fly to/from Albania this winter, expanding the CEE footprint offering competition, choice and lower fares than the incumbent carrier, it said.
‘European short-haul capacity remains constrained’
Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, said: “Structural EU capacity reductions following numerous EU airline failures or fleet reductions during Covid, volatile oil prices (discouraging weaker, unhedged, airlines from adding capacity), a shortage of aircraft (new and leased), the return of Asian traffic and this year’s very strong influx of American visitors to Europe (helped by a strong US$) means that European short-haul capacity remains constrained this summer. H1 demand is robust and fares remain ahead of last year as we move into peak S.23 although this trend seems weaker in Q2 than it was in Q1.
“European airlines will continue to consolidate over the next 2-3 years, with the takeover of ITA (Italy) and the sale of TAP (Portugal) already underway. The large backlog of OEM aircraft deliveries is likely to constrain capacity growth in Europe for at least the next 4 years, which will enable Ryanair to further extend our market share gains as we take delivery of almost 100 Gamechangers over the next 3 summers.
“Our unit cost advantage over EU competitors, fuel hedging, strong balance sheet and low-cost aircraft orders out to 2033, coupled with our industry leading operational resilience, creates significant growth opportunities for Ryanair over the coming years as we grow traffic to 300m p.a. by FY34. ”
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