23rd May 2016 05:43
LONDON (Alliance News) - Irish budget airline Ryanair Holdings PLC on Monday said its profit, revenue and number of customers carried all grew in its recently completed financial year, though it expects softer pricing and only modest growth in net profit in the current year.
Ryanair said profit after tax for the year to the end of March grew 43% to EUR1.24 billion from EUR867.0 million a year earlier.
Revenue rose 16% to EUR6.54 billion from EUR5.65 billion, and the airline carried 106.4 million passengers, 18% more than the year before.
Ryanair said unit costs fell 6.0% over the course of the year, or 2.0% excluding cheaper fuel, and the group expects to continue cutting costs in the current financial year.
But Ryanair expressed a degree of caution on the current financial year. The group said it anticipates profit after tax to rise "modestly" in the year to the end of March 2017 to between EUR1.38 billion and EUR1.43 billion.
However, Ryanair said this guidance will be "heavily dependent" on summer bookings strength and on the yields for the winter months. It said summer bookings are on average 2% ahead of a year before, though at lower average fares.
In addition, this will be dependent on the strength of sterling over the course of the year, which could have a translational effect on the company's earnings, and on the "absence of any further external shocks", referring to the terror attacks in Europe which have hit the airline industry, particularly in the second half of Ryanair's financial year.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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