Ryanair – RYAAY – Q1 revenues grow 11%

Ryanair Holdings plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:RYAAY) , Ryanair, Europe’s only ultra-low cost airline announced that Q1 revenues increased 11% to €1,284m as traffic grew 6% and ave. fares rose 4%. Unit costs rose 10% mainly due to a 27% (€117m) increase in fuel costs which led to a €40m decline in Q1 profit-as previously guided-to €99m.

Ryanair’s CEO, Michael O’Leary, said: “As we previously guided, significantly higher fuel costs caused Q1 profits to fall by €40m (from €139m last year’s) to €99m. Our 6% traffic growth combined with a 4% rise in ave. fares led to an 11% increase in Revenues. Ancillary sales grew by 15% to €286m (outpacing traffic growth) accounting for 22% of total revenues. Operating unit costs rose 10% as fuel increased 27% (by €117m) to €544m. Fuel amounted to 47% of total operating costs. We were hedged at $820 pt in Q1 last year compared to $1000 pt this year a price increase of 22%. As a result Q1 will suffer the largest fuel cost rise in FY13 as the pricing differential narrows significantly over the remaining three quarters of the year.

Q1 yield increases were dampened by the EU wide recession, austerity measures, and heavily discounted fares at our new base launches in Cyprus, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Provincial UK and Spain. Excluding fuel, Q1 unit costs rose by 3%, as we rigorously controlled costs, despite a 2% rise in flight crew pay, higher charges at certain airports, and the impact on costs of stronger Sterling against the Euro.

Despite this challenging environment Ryanair continues to grow its traffic across Europe while maintaining the lowest unit costs in the airline industry, and generating healthy profits as evidenced by the 8% after tax margin achieved in the first quarter.

Outlook – RYAAY

Our outlook remains cautious for the year. We expect full year traffic to grow 4% (7% in H1, and 1% in H2 due to winter capacity cuts). We expect positive yields will continue in Q2 and anticipate smaller fuel cost increases (due to higher Q2 comparable last year and fuel saving measures we have implemented). Currently, we have no visibility of next winter’s yields but expect that continuing austerity, EU recession, and lower yields at new bases will restrain fare growth. Until we get some H2 yield visibility our guidance for FY 13 remains unchanged, in the range of €400m to €440m as previously guided”.

About Ryanair Holdings plc. – RYAAY

Ryanair Holdings plc. (RYAAY) is a holding company for Ryanair Limited (Ryanair). RYAAY operates a low-fares, scheduled-passenger airline serving short-haul, point-to-point routes between Ireland, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, and Morocco. As of June 30, 2011, the Company offered approximately 1,550 scheduled short-haul flights per day serving approximately 160 airports throughout Europe, and flying approximately 1,300 routes. RYAAY sells seats on a one-way basis.

More Posts by this author

• CommVault – CVLT – Expands Fujitsu Partnership
• American Financial Group – AFG – Pleased with strong P&C underwriting results and record operating earnings in annuity and supplemental businesses
• Allot Communications – ALLT – Reports 43% Revenue Rise for Second Quarter of 2012
• U.S. Stocks Inch Higher Helped By Unexpectedly Stronger Economic Indicators
• Impax Laboratories – IPXL – Positive second quarter results
• Coach – COH – Strong double-digit sales and earnings gains
• The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company – GT – Business is on track to achieve its 2013 target, one year ahead of plan

Post Written By: Ed Liston Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.