Ryanair has lowered its full year profit guidance (excluding Laudamotion) from a current range of €1.25 billion – €1.35 billion, to a new range of €1.10 billion – €1.20 billion due to lower traffic and weaker close in fares in September, caused by 2 days of coordinated pilot/cabin crew strikes in Germany, Holland, Belgium, Spain and Portugal, as well as lower third quarter fares as forward bookings (particularly for the Oct school mid-terms and Christmas) and customer confidence are affected by fear of further strikes and higher EU261 care and re-accommodation costs arising from these recent strikes and higher prices (US$82pbl) for unhedged oil (10%).
Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said: We now guide full year 2019 PAT in a new range of €1.10bn to €1.20bn (previously €1.25bn to €1.35bn). Second quarter fares are down approx. 3% (previously guided +1%) due to the weakness caused to close-in bookings and fares mainly as a result of these 2 (5 country) co-ordinated strikes in September.
We had until last week expected stronger third quarter fares to recover softer second quarter yields but over the past week third quarter fares and customer confidence, have been affected by worries about possible strikes.
We are now guiding second half fares down 2% (previously flat). Our fuel bill will be approx. €460 million higher (previously €430 million) than last year and “Other Costs” will be negatively impacted by higher EU261 care and re-accommodation costs. Our slower traffic growth in second half will cut full year 2019 traffic to 138 million (previously 139 million excluding Laudamotion).
