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By Conor Humphries
DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ryanair expects to return to pre-COVID profit levels this year or next, but the recovery remains fragile and may still be diverted by oil prices, geopolitics or an Omicron wave, Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said on Monday.
O’Leary speaking after his airline, Europe’s largest by passenger numbers, posted a profit of 170 million euros ($174 million) over the three months to the end of June, the first quarter of its fiscal year.
Well below the profit of 243 million euros in the same quarter of 2019, when it transported 15% fewer passengers, but above the 157 million euros predicted in a survey of the company’s analysts.
“Obviously we are seeing a recovery, obviously there is demand, but it is very fragile and can break in the very short term in case of unfavorable COVID or unfavorable developments in Ukraine,” he told investors on a call.
Ryanair is not in a position to give a profit forecast for the existing monetary year ending March 31 due to uncertainty, he said.
The cheap airline will succeed in pre-COVID after-tax profit grades, earning at least a billion euros a year, but it’s unclear whether that will be in the current fiscal year or the next, O’Leary said.
Ryanair shares fell 1% in early trading and rose 2. 8% at 11:25 GMT after the call from O’Leary investors.
Ryanair, which was keen to keep its pilots and crew informed about their flight hours during the pandemic, was enshrined as Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, ahead of the Lufthansa Group.
It plans to bring in 15 percent more passengers than in 2019 during the summer months, and further expansion of 10 percent is expected through next summer, O’Leary said. Only 4% of seats remained empty on flights in July and the same point was expected in August. he said.
Ticket costs for bookings for the July-September quarter, Ryanair’s most successful era of the year, are above 2019 grades with a low double-digit percentage, O’Leary said.
But advance bookings are 7 to 8% at the same time in 2019. This creates uncertainty because last-minute costs can be much higher, but they can also decrease a lot in the event of an unforeseen outage, he said.
Ryanair is unlikely to return money to shareholders in its current or next monetary year, as it will do so in paying capital expenditures, Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorahan said.
Ryanair is in normal contact with Boeing, but the U. S. planemaker is in normal contact with Boeing. UU. ” it’s nowhere near” the value levels that would be needed to move forward with a large order for the upcoming 737 MAX 10, Sorahan said.
(Written by Conor Humphries; edited by Uttaresh. V, Vinay Dwivedi, Kirsten Donovan)