Ryanair promises even cheaper fares after record €1.3bn profit

Ryanair has reported a 6% increase in full year net profit to €1.316bn. The increase in profits was driven by a 13% increase in passenger numbers, with 120 million people flying with the airline last year, according to the company’s annual returns. Unit costs at the airline fell by 11%, largely driving by a reduction in fuel costs.

Ryanair CEO, Michael O’Leary said that he was pleased with the profit, despite what he described as “difficult trading conditions 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”.

Revenue at the airline was up 2% to €6.6bn, while the company’s net margin increased 1% to 20%. Average fares at the airline, which recently announced that it would sell long haul flights with Air Europa on its website, fell 13% to €41.

The airline recently announced the launch of Ryanair Sun in a move to significantly boost their presence in Poland. The company said that it expects Ryanair Sun to become Poland’s number one charter airline by the summer of 2019.

The company said that it had actively campaigned for a remain vote in the UK referendum on Brexit last year, and warned that a “hard” Brexit could cause significant disruption to UK/EU flights for a period of months after March 2019 – when the UK is officially due to leave the EU.

In the last year, Ryanair took delivery of 52 new Boeing 737s, launched 206 new routes, and opened 10 new bases at airports in Bucharest, Corfu, Frankfurt Main, Hamburg, Ibiza, Nuremburg, Prague, Sofia, Timisoara and Vilnius. Its fleet is expected to grow to 427 aircraft by March 2018 as it bids to increase traffic to 130 million customers. This year, Ryanair will expand its Frankfurt Main base, open bases in Memmingen (Munich) and Poznan, Poland, as well as launching its first flights to Tel Aviv and the Ukraine.

This is definitely good news for all fans of low-cost flights and we sincerely hope that Ryanair will offer even more destinations at their unbeatable prices.