Ryanair has today published its full year results, showing profits up 13 per cent to just over €1 billion.
The carrier said that the results – which cover the financial year to March 31, 2020 – were impacted by around €40 million due to the majority of the airline’s aircraft being grounded from mid March due to the emerging coronavirus pandemic.
Note that the figure also excludes an exceptional charge of around €350 million due to the ineffectiveness of fuel hedging.
The carrier recently announced plans to return to restore around 40 per cent of flights from July, operating around 1,000 flights per day to 90 per cent of its network.
But Ryanair said that it now expects to carry “less than 80 million passengers” in the current financial year, down from its original target of 154 million.
The airline continues to express its discontent at “unprecedented quantums of State Aid (in breach of EU rules) under which over €30bn has been gifted to the Lufthansa Group, Air France-KLM, Alitalia, SAS and Norwegian among others”.
The carrier reiterated that it “will not request or receive state aid”, although it did confirm that it had recently raised £600 million under the UK’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF).
Ryanair Group said that consultation are under way over base closures, pay cuts of up to 20 per cent, unpaid leave and up to 3,000 job cuts.
The group said that the current financial year “will be difficult”, but added that “As we look beyond the next year, there will be significant opportunities for Ryanair’s low cost, growth model as competitors shrink, fail or are acquired by government bailed out carriers”.
