Ryanair profits soar to £1.2bn amid huge demand for travel

Ryanair has managed to swing back into the black despite a massive hike in costs over recent months.

The airline said that it carried more than twice the number of passengers compared to a year ago, helping to push up revenue.

This fed further down the balance sheet as pretax profits reached €1.4 billion (£1.2 billion) in the first six months of the year, compared to a loss of €100 million just a year earlier.

The company carried a record number of passengers in the second quarter and average ticket prices were around 14% higher than before the pandemic, bosses said.

It was enough to offset the drop in fare prices in the first three months of the year as Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine pushed down ticket prices in Europe.

Revenue more than tripled to €6.6 billion (£5.79bn) during the six months and Ryanair carried 95.1 million passengers, a jump of 143%. For the airline – as for most businesses – costs also soared. The company’s operating costs rose from €2.2bn to nearly €5bn (£4.39bn).

The business has escaped some of the chaos that has hit some of its rivals. It has bought around four-fifths of its fuel in advance at $67 a barrel, locking in lower prices earlier.

Fuel prices have soared in the last year and, by comparison, the fuel that Ryanair is buying in advance for next year has cost it an average of $93 per barrel.

Meanwhile, the company also avoided some of the hit from a soaring dollar by buying the dollars it plans to spend on buying aircraft in advance up until 2026 at $1.24 per euro.

“Our growth is being hampered by Boeing’s inability to meet its delivery schedule in Q3,” said chief executive Michael O’Leary.

Despite rising costs, Ryanair is back in the black.