Enlarge image
Ryanair plane: advertising campaign with cheap tickets
Photo: Gleb Garanich / REUTERS
For the first time since the beginning of the corona pandemic, the low-cost airline Ryanair has been in the black in a quarter. From July to September, the airline achieved a net profit of 225 million euros, according to the balance sheet published on Monday. Bookings for the autumn and Christmas holidays have picked up, said Ryanair. Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary described the rest of the financial year running until the end of March as challenging: "The winter is going to be hard." The company lowered its earnings forecast for the full year to a loss of 100 to 200 million euros.
Europe's leading low-cost airline earned money for the first time since the end of 2019.
After that, the outbreak of the corona pandemic hit air traffic so massively that state financial injections were necessary to keep companies in the industry afloat.
With the removal of travel restrictions, the planes filled up again from the summer.
Lufthansa, which published its figures on Wednesday, had also given the prospect of operating black figures for this summer quarter from July to September, if restructuring costs are factored out.
According to Lufthansa, analysts expect an adjusted operating loss of 33 million euros on average, including these costs.
Aimed at 90 percent utilization
In the coming months, Ryanair plans to offer tickets at low prices to stimulate demand.
The machines should then be 90 percent utilized again after 84 percent last.
Ryanair wants to close the next financial year with a profit.
Until the end of March, the airline is 80 percent hedged against rising fuel costs through forward transactions.
In the first half of the financial year, Ryanair carried more than twice as many passengers as in the same period of the previous year, but 54 percent fewer than before the corona crisis.
Sales rose by 80 percent to 2.15 billion euros.
In the winter months, the airline expects ten million passengers a month, so that it could be a little over 100 million for the year as a whole.
In the following year it will be 165 million passengers, as Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorahan told the radio station RTE.
That would be a new record: Before the pandemic, the Irish were the market leader in Europe with 149 million passengers - despite the sometimes rude behavior towards customers.
Ryanair aims to grow to 225 million passengers annually by 2026.
mik / Reuters
