Shares jump 5% as Ryanair eyes 200m passengers

Ryanair shares jumped more than 5% yesterday after the company offered an upbeat outlook, despite Brexit uncertainties, and approved a plan to return another €550m to shareholders.

The airline yesterday reported a solid set of first-half results — covering the six months to the end of September — showing a 7% year-on-year rise in after-tax profit to almost €1.17bn; a 2% jump in revenue to over €4.13bn and a 12% boost in passenger numbers to just under 65m people.

It was the latter figure which formed the basis of management’s positive mood yesterday — the airline last month lowered its full-year profit guidance by 5% — and helped raise the airline’s share price by around 5.3%, to €13.41 and boost its near €17.4bn market value by almost €1bn.

Ryanair expects to carry more than 119m passengers across its Europe-wide route network in its current financial year, which runs to the end of next March.

The knock-on effect of this is the company upping its long-term traffic forecast by 10%, meaning management now sees more than 200m customers a year flying with Ryanair by March 2024.

“Despite the uncertainty of Brexit, Ryanair believes that we can deliver profitable growth across Europe by controlling costs, lowering air fares and maximising load factors in a manner that will most benefit our customers, our people and our shareholders,” chief executive Michael O’Leary said.

However, he said management remains cautious in its outlook for the current financial year and Brexit uncertainty and weaker air fares will be “the dominant features” of its second half.

While still down by around €2 on where it started the year, Ryanair’s share price was up by nearly €1, at €13.41, yesterday.

The airline, which has returned over €4.2bn to shareholders in the past eight years, also said that yesterday its board has authorised a further share buyback of up to €550m over the next four months.

“We will continue to return surplus funds to shareholders subject to market conditions as long as we remain profitable, cash generative and can fund our capital expenditure and other operational requirements,” Mr. O’Leary said.