In its full-year financial results, released today (Tuesday), Ryanair reported a 6% increase in full-year net profit to €1.316 billion.
The airline said that the combination of a 13% cut in average fares, coupled with Year 3 of its “Always Getting Better” (AGB) programme delivered 13% traffic growth to 120 million customers, and a 94% load factor.
Chief executive Michael O’Leary said: “We are pleased to report a 6% increase in [full-year net profit], despite difficult trading conditions in [full-year] 2017 caused by a series of security events at European cities, a switch of charter capacity from North Africa, Turkey and Egypt to mainland Europe, and a sharp decline in sterling following the June 2016 Brexit vote.
“We reacted to these challenges by improving our customer experience, and stimulating growth with lower fares.”
With regards to Brexit, Ryanair reiterated that it was “disappointed” by the EU referendum result, and is concerned at “the significant uncertainty over the terms of the UK’s departure from the EU in March 2019”.
“Until we get clarity over the final terms of the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU, there must be significant uncertainty over flights between the UK and the EU for a period of time from March 2019 onwards,” said Ryanair in its results statement.
“A hard Brexit could cause significant disruption to UK/EU flights for a period of months after March 2019, which is why we must remain flexible.
“In the absence of such certainty, or direction, we will continue to pivot our growth away from the UK in 2017 and 2018 to capitalise on the many growth opportunities elsewhere in Europe.
“We have contingency plans and will adapt to changed circumstances in the best interests of our customers.”
Ryanair said its full-year outlook was “clouded” by the absence of Half 2 yield visibility.
“While forward bookings in Half 1 are reasonably robust (up 1% on prior year) pricing remains soft, and depends on the absence of security events in Europe’s cities or airports.
“While Q1 will benefit from Easter, we have limited visibility of close-in peak summer bookings and zero H2 visibility.
“We expect full-year 2018 average fares will decline by -5% to -7% due to weaker sterling, and continuing excess capacity in Europe.
“We expect our fuel bill will fall by €70m in full-year 2018, but we will pass on these savings to customers in lower air fares. We expect ex-fuel unit cost to fall by 1% in full-year 2018.”
Ryanair is “cautiously” guiding an 8% increase in full-year 2018 net profit to a range of €1.40 billion to €1.45 billion.
