DUBLIN: Ryanair reported after-tax profit on Monday just ahead of analyst forecasts for the six months ended September and nudged up its passenger traffic forecast due to earlier than expected Boeing deliveries and strong first-half demand.
The Irish airline, Europe’s largest by passenger numbers, said it cautiously expects to recover all of last year’s 7% average fare decline in its financial year to March 31, and that should lead to “reasonable” net profit growth for the full year.
Average fares grew by 13% year-on-year during the first half.
The low-cost carrier reported a net profit of 2.54 billion euros ($2.96 billion) for the first half, which is when it typically makes most of its profit due to the northern hemisphere’s busy summer holiday season.
That was up 42% from 1.8 billion euros in the same period last year and ahead of a Ryanair poll of analysts that had expected 2.5 billion euros.
Ryanair expects to fly 207 million passengers in the year to end-March, up from an earlier forecast of 206 million after it received 23 new MAX 8 aircraft from Boeing in the first half.
“While Q3 forward bookings are slightly ahead of (PY) prior year, particularly across the Oct. mid-term and Christmas peaks, we would caution that we face more challenging PY fare comps in H2 making fare growth more challenging,” Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said in a statement.
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