Irish budget airline Ryanair has announced that robust demand and cost-cutting boosted its net profit by around a quarter in the first three months of its financial year. The company remains optimistic on outlook.
Ryanair said Monday that its net profits jumped by about 25 percent in the three months to June 30, amounting to 245 million euros ($270 million), up from 197 million euros the company earned during the same period last year.
At the same time, revenue leaped 10 percent to 1.653 billion euros, and passenger numbers gained 16 percent to 28 million customers.
“We are pleased to report strong growth in traffic and profits in Q1,” said CEO Michael O’Leary.
“Our mix of low fares, best on-time performance and enhanced customer experience … continues to attract millions of new customers. At the same time our focus on cost enables us to pass on lower fares to customers.”
Ryanair also projected that its full-year profit would be “towards the upper end” of its forecast of between 940 million euros and 970 million euros.
Furthermore, the company said it would “aggressively” cut its ticket prices in the winter.
Unfair advantage?
In other news about the company, the EU on Monday referred France to the bloc’s top court for failing to recover nearly 10 million euros in illegal state aid received by low-cost airlines Ryanair and Dutch airline Transavia.
Both carriers received the money from the French government in return for basing operations at several French regional airports.
The European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, ordered the French government in July 2014 to get the money back, saying it had given the companies an unfair advantage over competitors.
The Commission said rebates and marketing arrangements meant the airlines paid less than they should have for using the airports.
However, Ryanair had appealed against the recovery orders made by the French government, effectively blocking the EU action in French national courts, the Commission said.
“In order to ensure its state aid decisions are fully implemented the Commission has therefore decided to refer France to the European Court of Justice,” it said.
sri/hg (AFP, Reuters)
