Ryanair swings to profit in Q1 as traffic recovers

Budget airline Ryanair said on Monday that it swung to a profit in the first quarter as traffic recovered, but did not provide any guidance for the year given the "fragile" air travel market.

The company swung to a profit after tax of €170m in the first quarter from a loss of €273m in the same period a year earlier. However, this was well below the €243m reported in the first quarter of FY20, before the pandemic struck.

Customer numbers surged 461% to 45.5m, with traffic 9% ahead of pre-Covid levels, and the load factor improved to 92% from 73%. Revenue jumped 602% to €2.6bn.

Ryanair said that while traffic recovered strongly, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February dented Easter bookings and fares. As a result, average fares were down 4% on the same quarter pre-Covid.

The airline said that while there are clear signs of pent-up demand, bookings remain closer-in than was the norm pre-Covid at this time of year.

"While we remain hopeful that the high rate of vaccinations in Europe will allow the airline and tourism industry to fully recover and finally put Covid behind us, we cannot ignore the risk of new Covid variants in Autumn 2022," it said.

"Given our later booking profile, the lack of visibility, volatile oil prices, potential Covid, geopolitical and supply chain risks, it is too soon to provide meaningful FY23 PAT guidance at this time. We hope to be in a better position to do so at the half year results in November but, as our experience with Omicron last November and Ukraine in February shows, any guidance is subject to a very rapid change from unexpected events which are well beyond our control during what remains a very strong but still fragile recovery."