Ryanair cuts passenger forecast once more on Boeing delays
Low-cost airline Ryanair has slashed its passenger forecast once again, blaming aircraft delivery delays from Boeing.
The Irish carrier said it now expects to carry 206 million passengers in its 2025-26 financial year, which would be growth of 3%, down from the 210 million previously forecast.
It had already cut the guidance from 215 million to 210 million in November due to woes at Boeing.
Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said: “While B737 production is recovering from Boeing’s strike in late 2024, we no longer expect Boeing to deliver sufficient aircraft ahead of summer 2025 to facilitate full-year 2025-26 traffic growth to 210 million passengers.
“Boeing delays have forced us to revise our 2025-26 traffic target to 206 million (just 3% growth).”
Airlines have been knocked by problems at Boeing, which was hit hard by a lengthy strike at the end of last year, while the aerospace giant has had to slow down production of its 737 MAX after a door panel blowout on a commercial flight in January last year.
With its passenger growth under pressure, Mr O’Leary said Ryanair would “reallocate this scarce capacity growth to those regions and airports – in Poland, Sweden and Italy – who are investing in growth by cutting/abolishing aviation taxes, and incentivising traffic growth”.
The group said it was “cautiously” guiding for profits after tax to rise to between 1.55 billion euro (£1.30 billion) and 1.61 billion euro (£1.35 billion) for the current 2024-25 financial year, down from 1.92 billion euro (£1.62 billion) the previous year.
Its latest update saw it report better-than-expected results for the three months to December 31, with after-tax profits at 149 million euro (£125 million), up significantly from last year’s 15 million euro (£13 million) and more than double analyst forecasts.
This was down to a 1% rise in average air fares in the quarter and robust Christmas and New Year bookings, while it flew 9% more passengers, at 45 million, despite the “prolonged Boeing delays”.
But it added that operating costs rose 8% to 2.93 billion euro (£2.57 billion) in the quarter due to higher staff costs and part as a result of the Boeing delays.
