Ryanair made a fortune this summer – so why are their prices still rising?

‘The EU Parliament is proposing even more stupid rules’, says Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary

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Ryanair made a fortune during the summer, earning almost £25 per passenger. Europe’s biggest budget airline made €1.72bn (£1.51bn) in profits after tax during the second quarter of its financial year, covering the months of July, August and September.

During those months, Ryanair carried 61.2 million passengers, representing an average of £24.67 for each traveller flown.

The “load factor” increased by one per cent to 96 per cent, meaning there were only seven or eight empty seats on the average flight. Average one-way fares rose by 6.5 per cent to €65 (£57).

Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair Group, said : “We expect European short-haul capacity to remain constrained to at least 2030 as the big 2 OEMs [Airbus and Boeing] remain behind on aircraft production.”

In other words, the supply of seats is lower than the market would expect, leading to higher fares.

He also cited repairs to Pratt & Whitney engines on Airbus A320 series aircraft as a constraint.

The Ryanair boss added: “This winter, we’ve allocated Ryanair’s scarce capacity to those regions and airports cutting aviation taxes and incentivising traffic growth such as Sweden, Slovakia, Italy, Albania and Morocco by switching flights and routes away from high cost, uncompetitive markets like Germany, Austria and regional Spain.

“Industry capacity constraints, combined with our widening cost advantage, strong balance sheet, low-cost aircraft order book and industry-leading ops resilience will, we believe, facilitate Ryanair’s controlled profitable growth to 300 million passengers per annum by financial year 2034."

Mr O'Leary also hit out at European Parliament plans to require airlines to allow all passengers to take a roll-along case as well as a smaller personal item into the cabin of an aircraft.

He said: “The EU Parliament is proposing even more stupid rules, such as further increasing free carry-on luggage limits – even though there is no room in the aircraft cabin for these extra bags, which will only lead to more airport security and flight delays as well as higher costs, and higher fares for Europe’s consumers.”

But MEPs believe taking two pieces of cabin baggage on board a flight is “a fundamental right to avoid unjustified extra costs”.

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