Budget airline Ryanair defied economic difficulties to report a record annual profit on Tuesday, as well as increases in both traffic growth and load factor.
The airline recorded a 6 percent increase in full year net profit to 1.316 billion euros, achieved through a 13 percent cut in average fares and a 13 percent growth in customers to 120 million. Ryanair also reported an ‘industry leading’ 94 percent load factor.
Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary said the strong results had been achieved “despite 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.”
“We reacted to these challenges by improving our customer experience, and stimulating growth with lower fares,” he added, as well as taking delivery of 52 new B737’s, launching 206 new routes, and opening 10 new bases at primary airports in Bucharest, Corfu, Frankfurt Main, Hamburg, Ibiza, Nuremburg, Prague, Sofia, Timisoara and Vilnius.
“While we again lowered fares in 2017, our punctuality was impacted by repeated ATC staff shortages and strikes, and unusually disruptive weather in November and December. On times slipped 2 percent points from an industry leading 90 percent to 88 percent,” O’Leary said.
Looking forward, the company warned that a “hard” Brexit could cause significant disruption to UK/EU flights for a period of months after March 2019
“In the absence of such certainty, or direction, we will continue to pivot our growth away from the UK in 2017 and 2018 to capitalise on the many growth opportunities elsewhere in Europe”, it finished.
Shares in Ryanair (LON:RYA) sunk on the news, as warning on a possible negative impact caused worry to investors. Shares are currently trading down 0.94 percent at 17.84 (0855GMT).