Ryanair Reports Q1 Profits of €820 Million

Ryanair Holdings plc, parent company of Ryanair DAC, Ryanair UK, Malta Air, Buzz and Lauda Europe, has reported Q1 profit after tax of €820m, compared to prior-year Q1 PAT of €360m, as traffic grew 4% to 58m passengers at 21% higher fares.

Q1 highlights include:

• Traffic grew 4% to 57.9m.
• Revenue per passenger rose 15% (average fare up 21% to €51 & ancillary revenue up 3%).
• Unit cost inflation just 1% – cost gap advantage widens.
• Competitive fuel hedges de-risk Group:  c.85% FY26 at $76bbl.
• 181 B737 “Gamechangers” in 618 fleet (including 5 deliveries in Q1).
• Over 160 new S.25 routes (total 2,600 routes).
• 30 spare CFM LEAP engines bought to improve resilience.
• Ryanair added to the MSCI World Index.

Commenting on the release of the results, Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary, said: “Total revenue rose 20% to €4.34bn. Scheduled revenue increased 26% to €2.94bn as traffic grew 4% with 21% higher fares. Q1 fares substantially benefitted from having a full Easter holiday in April, weak prior-year comps and marginally stronger than expected close-in pricing. Ancillary revenues delivered another solid performance rising 7% to €1.39bn. Operating costs rose 5% (+1% per pax) to €3.42bn as our jet fuel hedging largely offset ATC fees (up 16%) and higher enviro. costs (as ETS allowances unwind and SAF blend mandates impact costs from Jan. 2025). Ryanair’s competitive fuel hedging provides a key advantage in current volatile oil markets, with FY26 almost 85% hedged at $76bbl and FY27 36% hedged at just under $66bbl.”

Commenting on the current fleet and planned growth, he went on to say: “Ryanair has 181 B737-8200 “Gamechangers” (up 25 from June 2024) in its 618 aircraft fleet, facilitating 3% FY26 traffic growth (to 206m passengers).  We remain confident that the 29 remaining Gamechangers in our 210 orderbook will deliver well ahead of S.26, when we hope to recover this years delayed traffic growth into FY27.  Boeing continues to expect MAX-10 certification in late 2025 and we’re planning for the timely delivery of our first 15 MAX-10 deliveries in Spring 2027, with 300 of these very fuel efficient aircraft due to deliver by Mar. 2034. 

This summer we will operate over 2,600 routes (incl. 160 new routes) and we’re seeing strong S.25 travel demand across our network. Our Group airlines capacity constrained growth is being allocated to those regions and airports who are cutting aviation taxes and incentivising traffic growth, and we expect this trend to continue.

We believe European short-haul capacity will remain constrained for the next 5 years to 2030 as the big 2 OEMs remain well behind on aircraft deliveries, many of Europe’s Airbus operators work through Pratt & Whitney engine repairs and EU airline consolidation continues (SAS, TAP, Air Europa & others). These industry capacity constraints, combined with our widening unit cost (and fuel hedge) advantage, strong balance sheet, low-cost aircraft orders and industry leading ops resilience will, we believe, facilitate Ryanair’s controlled profitable growth to 300m passengers p.a. by FY34.”

Looking to the rest of this financial year, O’Leary said: “FY26 traffic remains on track to grow just 3% to 206m passengers, due to heavily delayed Boeing deliveries.  As previously guided, we expect modest unit cost inflation in FY26 as the delivery of more B737 Gamechangers, advantageous fuel hedging and effective cost control across our Group airlines helps offset increased ATC charges and higher enviro. costs.  While S.25 travel demand is strong, Q2 fare increases will be lower than in Q1 (which benefitted from a full Easter holiday in April and weak prior-year comps) and we now expect to recover almost all of the 7% fare decline we suffered in PY Q2. The final H1 outcome is, however, heavily dependent on the strength of close-in Aug. and Sept. bookings.  As is normal at this time of year, we have zero H2 visibility (where PY fare comps normalise and last years modest delivery delay compensation rolls off). 

It remains too early to provide meaningful FY26 PAT guidance.  We do, however, cautiously expect to recover almost all of last years 7% full-year fare decline, which should lead to reasonable net profit growth in FY26.  The final FY26 outcome remains heavily exposed to adverse external developments, incl. the risk of tariff wars, macro-economic shocks, conflict escalation in the Middle East and Ukraine and European ATC strikes, mismanagement & short staffing.”