Ryanair has revealed its full year profit up to March 2024, reaching record figures despite Boeing delivery delays and fuel price rises. The low-cost airline posted a €1.92 billion net profit, a whopping 34% increase from last year and 32% over the previous record of €1.45 billion made in the March 2017-2018 financial year.
The figures are a slight improvement on earlier predictions, which foresaw a €1.905 billion profit. Moreover, traffic grew by 9%, to 183.7 million passengers, just over CEO Michael O’Leary’s previous estimate of 183.5 million passengers.
Ryanair has already adapted its summer schedule due to the delays and, in January, O’Leary said that instead of 205 million passengers, the airline will probably only carry 200 million during the financial year starting in April 2024, the reduced capacity leading to a fare spike of 5% to 10%.
However, ahead of the balance sheet reveal, the CEO reverted on his predictions, with pricing being “flat to modestly ahead of last summer”. “It is a bit surprising that pricing hasn’t been stronger and we’re not quite sure whether that’s just consumer sentiment or recessionary feel around Europe but we still see peak travel demand certainly through July and August being strong”, he said at a press conference in Brussels.
If we have to discount or cut fares to fill to 94% load factor in April, May and June then so be it.
Michael O’Leary, Ryanair CEO
Despite the apparently good news, the airline has cautioned that a risk of Boeing delivery delays slipping further remains. As one of Boeing’s largest customers, having placed a historic order of 300 jets worth over €36 billion in May 2023, the delivery delays combined with an unavoidable short term reluctance of flying on a 737 in the aftermath of Boeing’s quality and reputational disaster, has left Ryanair as one of the most affected airlines by the delays.
Ryanair had a fleet of 146 Boeing 737 Gamechangers at year-end and hopes to increase this to 158 by the end of July, which is 23 short of the contracted deliveries. On the other hand, airlines that are less reliant on Boeing and have a higher number of Airbuses in their fleet will be less affected this summer. United rivals, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, only have about half of their fleets made of Boeings and have not reported major changes for the summer. Similarly, in Europe, during the Airlines for Europe aviation summit, the CEOs of British Airlines owner, IAG group, easyJet and Air France – KLM all said they expect no to few delivery delays this year, but no impact to schedules.
Looking ahead, Ryanair expects to grow FY25 traffic by 8% to between 198 million and 200 million passengers, but has offered no profit estimates. The airline has already hedged over 70% of its fuel for the following year, however O’Leary remains “cautiously optimistic” of peak 2024 fares, and aware of possible adversities, such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, extensive ATC disruptions or further Boeing delivery delays.
