By Anthony O. Goriainoff


Ryanair Holdings PLC said Monday that Easter bookings and fares in the first quarter of fiscal 2023 were hurt by the war in Ukraine, with flights into the country canceled and neighboring operations affected, as it reported a swing to a net profit that missed the market consensus.

The Irish low-cost carrier said that because of this, average fares in the period were down 4% when compared with the same quarter before Covid-19, adding that it had limited visibility on the second quarter and almost zero visibility into the second half.

Ryanair said high oil prices will lead to increased costs on its 20% unhedged fuel for the remainder of the year, and despite clear signs of pent-up demand, bookings remain closer-in than the norm this time of year before the pandemic.

"At this time second-quarter average fares are tracking ahead of peak summer 2019 [pre-Covid-19] levels by a low double-digit percentage," the company said.

Traffic in the three months ended June 30 was 45.5 million passengers, compared with 8.1 million in the year earlier, the airline said.

Load factor--a measure of how full a plane is--for the period was 92%, compared with 73% the year prior.

Ryanair said its net profit was 187.5 million euros ($191.5 million), compared with a net loss of EUR272.6 million a year earlier. The net profit consensus was EUR406.6 million, according to FactSet and based on three analysts' estimates.

Pretax profit for the year was EUR203 million, compared with a pretax loss of EUR324.5 million the year before.

Revenue was EUR2.60 billion compared with EUR370.5 million a year earlier, the company said. The forecast was EUR2.54 billion, based on FactSet's compilation, based on seven analyst estimates.

Ancillary revenue rose to EUR1.03 billion from EUR178.6 million the year before, the company said, adding that it continued to perform strongly as traffic built, and was now delivering EUR22.50 per passenger.

The company said net debt at June 30 was EUR400 million, compared with EUR1.45 billion on March 31.

"Our balance sheet is in great shape and positions us well to exploit the growth opportunities that exist post-Covid-19, and we expect to improve it to a broadly zero net debt position in the coming two years," Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorahan said.

The company said that the risk of new Covid-19 variants couldn't be ignored in the autumn season, and that the strength of any recovery will be dependent on there being no adverse or unexpected developments for the rest of the fiscal year.

"Given our later booking profile, the lack of visibility, volatile oil prices, potential Covid-19, geopolitical and supply-chain risks, it is too soon to provide meaningful fiscal 2023 profit after tax guidance at this time...as our experience with Omicron last November and Ukraine in February shows, any guidance is subject to a very rapid change from unexpected events which are well beyond our control during what remains a very strong but still-fragile recovery," the company said.

Write to Anthony O. Goriainoff at anthony.orunagoriainoff@dowjones.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

07-25-22 0212ET