STORY: Europe’s largest low-cost airline, Ryanair, on Monday (November 4) trimmed its passenger growth target for next year.
That was due to Boeing delivery delays.
The plane maker was meant to deliver 15 737 MAX aircrafts next year.
But Ryanair assumed that number was high risk due to Boeing’s ongoing strikes.
Ryanair cut its passenger target for the year to March 2026 to 210 million passengers from 215 million.
However, it said lower air fares throughout a poor summer were now increasing.
The Irish airline reported $1.95 billion in after-tax profit for the six months to the end of September.
It marked an 18% fall from last year as average fares fell 10%.
But the group’s CEO Michael O’Leary said fares in the current third quarter are set to be only “modestly lower” than the same period last year.
Ryanair’s CFO said ticket price weakness has been partly due to the impact of high interest rates on consumers.
And also the decision by a number of online travel agents to stop selling Ryanair flights in early December following legal and regulatory pressure.
But the CFO said the issue with travel agents was “pretty much behind them” due to new agreements with a majority of them.
Shares in Ryanair were down in early trading.
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