Ryanair’s profits have dropped by nearly a fifth, as lower peak-season fares met higher costs that the airline blamed partly on problems at Boeing.
Summer fares were down by an average 7% as Ryanair cut prices to keep its planes full, carrying 9% more passengers from April to September this year than last.
However, delays to delivery of its new 737 planes left the no-frills carrier “over-scheduled, over-crewed and over-costed”, according to the chief executive, Michael O’Leary.
The airline reported profits of €1.8bn (£1.5bn) for the six months to the end of September, 18% lower than the same period the previous year.
It said the decline was partly driven by pressure on consumer spending amid higher interest rates and efforts to offset higher living costs – but it also cut fares to win market share and carry a record 115 million passengers over the half-year period.
Fares were likely to climb back towards previous levels over the winter, Ryanair said.
O’Leary said that the continued problems at the US plane manufacturer Boeing meant that Ryanair would cut its growth plans for next year, with only 172 of 300 Boeing 737-Max-10 planes on order now delivered. He said: “We now expect our remaining nine Q3 deliveries to slip into Q4 due to recent Boeing strikes.”
He added that compensation from Boeing for late deliveries did not make up for more than 5 million extra passengers it could have carried.
“While we continue to work with Boeing leadership to accelerate aircraft deliveries ahead of peak summer 2025, the risk of further delivery delays remains high,” he said. “We believe it is therefore sensible to moderate Ryanair’s full-year traffic growth target to 210 million passengers (previously 215 million) to reflect these delivery delays, as we wish to avoid being over-scheduled, over-crewed and over-costed as we were [this summer].”
Boeing workers in the US are voting this week on a new pay deal that if ratified would put an end to weeks of strikes.
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Ryanair has already said it expects to cut its UK capacity by up to 10% in response to a rise in air passenger duty announced at last week’s budget, which will take the rate on short-haul international departures up from £13 to £15 a passenger. O’Leary claimed the move in Rachel Reeves’ budget had “damaged growth, damaged tourism, and damaged air travel to and from the UK”.
Ryanair shares were down 2.5% in early trading.