A Ryanair passenger plane lands at Cologne/Bonn Airport.
Thomas Banneyer | Image Alliance |
Ryanair shares fell on Monday after the company said its quarterly profit after tax fell 46% and that fares would be lower than expected during the summer months.
At 11:28 a.m. London time, Ryanair’s share price was down 14.53 percent.
The budget airline said profit after tax in the three months to the end of June – Ryanair's first quarter – was 360 million euros ($392 million). In the same period last year, profit was 663 million euros, according to the company.
Ryanair cited weaker than expected flight prices and the fact that Easter business fell into the previous quarter as reasons for the drop in profits.
This came despite a 10% increase in passenger traffic to 55.5 million in the quarter, Ryanair said on Monday. The airline said it was operating its “biggest schedule ever” this summer with over 200 new routes and five new bases.
However, Michael O'Leary, CEO of the Ryanair Group, said in a statement that lower than expected airfares were expected over the next three months.
“Although demand is strong in the second quarter, prices remain lower than expected and we now expect airfares in the second quarter to be substantially lower than last summer (previously we had expected prices to be flat or slightly higher),” he said.
O'Leary added that it was too early to forecast the rest of the fiscal year.
“As is typical at this time of year, we have virtually no visibility for Q3 and Q4, although Q4 will not benefit from last year's early Easter. It is too early to provide meaningful PAT guidance for FY2025, although we hope to do so at our H1 results in November,” he said.
Other European airlines followed Ryanair's share price decline on Monday. Budget airline EasyJet lost more than 6 percent, while Jet2 fell 4 percent and Hungarian airline Wizz Air fell more than 6 percent.
Comments are closed.