Full Year results

http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/news/140516-ryanair-full-year-result-2014/

Ryanair today (May 19) announced full year net profit of €523m, slightly ahead of previous guidance.  Traffic grew 3% to 81.7m passengers.  Revenue per passenger was flat, as strong ancillary revenue growth offset a 4% fall in average fares.  Excluding fuel, sector length adjusted unit costs fell by 3%.  

The highlights of the past financial year include:-

•Customer experience improving rapidly.  
•New website launched with “fare finder” facility.
•121 new routes.
•8 new bases – Athens, Thessaloniki, Brussels, Lisbon, Rome (FCO), Catania, Lamezia & Palermo.    
•180 new aircraft ordered, delivery 2014 to 2018.
•Fares launched on GDS (Galileo & Worldspan) and Google flight search.  
•Net profit of €523m despite a 4% fall in avg fares.
•€482m share buyback completed.

While disappointing that profits fell 8% to €523m due mainly to a 4% decline in fares, weaker sterling, and higher fuel costs, we reacted quickly to this weaker environment last September by lowering fares and improving our customer experience which caused H2 traffic to grow 4% as load factors rose 1%.  Ancillary revenues grew 17%, much faster than traffic growth, and now accounts for 25% of total revenues.

Outlook.

We expect FY15 traffic to grow by 4% to over 84.6m as load factors increase 2% to 85% and we add some limited new route and capacity growth. Most of this growth will be skewed towards H2 as we reduce our winter grounding from 70 aircraft in FY14 to approx. 50 in FY15. While fares fell by 4% in FY14 we expect FY15 fares to rise by up to 2%. H1 fares will rise by up to 6% due in part to Easter, stable growth in Q2, and stronger forward bookings and load factors. However we remain very cautious about H2 guidance (especially following last winter’s weak price environment) where we are committed to 6% capacity growth which could cause H2 fares to fall by as much as 6% to 8%.