Full year results (2012/13)

http://www.ryanair.com/doc/investor/2013/q4_2013_doc.pdf

Extracts :

Ryanair today (May 20) announced (record) annual profits of €569m, up 13% on last year despite higher oil costs. Revenues rose 13% to €4.88bn as traffic grew 5% to 79.3m passengers. Unit costs rose 8% mainly due to an 18% (€292m) increase in fuel. Excluding fuel unit costs rose by 3%, while avg. fares improved by 6%.


The highlights of the past financial year include:-
 Profits grew by 13% to €569m.
 Traffic grew 5% to 79.3m (despite grounding up to 80 winter aircraft).
 7 new bases – Chania (Greece), Eindhoven (Netherlands), Fez (Morocco), Krakow (Poland), Maastricht (Netherlands), Marrakech (Morocco) & Zadar (Croatia).
 217 new routes (y/e total over 1,600 routes).
 15 new aircraft delivered (y/e fleet 305).
 2nd special div. of €492m and €68m share buyback completed.
 175 new aircraft order, delivery 2014 to 2018 (sub. to June 18 EGM approval).

Delivering a 13% increase in profits and 5% traffic growth despite high oil prices during a European recession is testimony to the strength of Ryanair’s ultra-low cost model. Fuel costs rose by over €290m, and now represent 45% of total costs. Excluding fuel, unit costs were up 3% due to excessive and unjustified increases in Italian ATC, Eurocontrol and Spanish airport fees. Ancillary revenues outpaced traffic growth, rising 20% to €1,064m or 22% of total revenue.

Forward bookings on our new routes and bases this summer are ahead of expectations (albeit at modest yields) as competitor airlines continue to restructure and cut short-haul capacity. We expect growth opportunities for Ryanair to expand and improve for the foreseeable future.

Our new route teams continue to handle more growth opportunities than our current fleet expansion allows. Significant opportunities are opening up in Germany, Scandinavia and central Europe in particular, where Air Berlin, SAS and LOT continue to restructure.

In addition to being the No. 1 passenger airline in Ireland, and Spain, we have in the last 12 months overtaken Alitalia and LOT to become Italy’s and Poland’s No. 1 airline, respectively.

Ryanair’s successful growth, allied to deep short-haul restructuring among many high fare competitors, gives us confidence that we can grow from 80m p.a. to over 100m passengers p.a. over the next 5 years. Our recent order for 175 firm B 737-800 aircraft represents an enormous opportunity for shareholders as Ryanair returns to higher rates (5% p.a.) of traffic growth. We are pleased to have reached acceptable pricing with Boeing, and the controlled delivery programme from Autumn 2014 to end of 2018 will provide the opportunity to expand Ryanair’s fleet to over 400 aircraft and our traffic to over 100m p.a.

Outlook
We expect traffic in FY.14 to grow by 3% to 81.5m. Growth will be slower in H1 at approx. 2%, but rise to approx. 5% in H2 as we ground fewer winter aircraft (up to 60) compared to prior years. Unit costs will increase primarily due to rising oil prices, a 3% growth in sector length, and unjustified higher Eurocontrol and Spanish airport charges. Due to lower yields and higher fuel costs Q1 Net Profit will be lower than last year due to the timing of Easter (which boosted Q4 revenues) and its presence in the prior year Q1 comparable. With almost zero yield visibility into H2 and the EU wide recession, we expect that there will continue to be downward pressure on yields which will dampen full year profit growth. We expect modest yield and traffic growth for the full year to be partly offset by higher oil and Eurocontrol costs resulting in another year of profit growth in FY’14 which - subject to winter yield outturns - should increase to a range of between €570m to €600m”.

See also (most interesting) :

http://www.ryanair.com/doc/investor/present/quarter4_2013.pdf