Ryanair has announced record annual profits of €1.92 billion, 34 percent more than the previous year.
The low-cost airline carried 183.7 million passengers in the year to March 2024 and said it expects this figure to rise to between 198 million and 200 million by FY25.
However, he stressed that this growth would depend on Boeing's deliveries returning to contracted levels before the end of the year.
Ryanair hopes to increase its Boeing 737 Max fleet to 158 aircraft by the end of July, but said contracted deliveries would still be 23 aircraft short.
The airline will eventually take delivery of 210 of what it calls its “Gamechanger” aircraft, and also has 150 737 Max 10s on order, with deliveries to begin in 2027.
Ryanair orders up to 300 Boeing 737 MAX 10 aircraft
Ryanair said it will operate its biggest summer schedules yet this year, with more than 200 routes and five new bases. despite being forced to cut its summer hours earlier this year due to Boeing delivery delays.
Meanwhile, the group announced that former UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd will join its board as a non-executive director from 1 July.
Commenting on the results, Ryanair group CEO Michael O'Leary said:
“We expect the consolidation of European airlines to continue, with the acquisition of ITA (Italy) and Air Europa (Spain) moving forward and the sale of TAP (Portugal) to follow. This, coupled with grounding of the A320 fleet and a large backlog of OEM aircraft deliveries, is likely to limit capacity growth in Europe for some years.
“These capacity constraints, combined with our significant cost advantage (including €450 million savings in fuel hedging for FY25), a strong balance sheet, low-cost aircraft orders and industry-leading resilience , will (we believe) support a decade of profitable growth for Ryanair as we grow to 300 million passengers by FY34.”
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