European budget airline Ryanair Group saw its annual post-tax profit fall by 16 per cent as average fares dropped by 7 per cent.
The Ireland-based company said it achieved a profit after tax of €1.61 billion for the year ending on 31 March 2025 – down from a profit of €1.92 billion in the previous year.
The fall in profitability came despite Ryanair increasing total passenger numbers by 9 per cent year-on-year to surpass the 200 million mark.
Total revenue was also up by 4 per cent to €13.95 billion over the same period, with revenue from ancillaries up by 10 per cent to €4.72 billion – mainly due to the increase in passengers.
Group CEO Michael O’Leary said the airline had to use “repeated price stimulation last year”, due to factors such as higher interest rates and inflation impacting consumer spending and “a big drop off” in bookings from online travel agencies ahead of the summer 2024 season.
This led to Ryanair’s fares dropping from an average of €50 in the 2023-2024 financial year to €46 last year. The airline said it “cautiously expects to recover most - but not all - of last year’s 7 per cent fare decline”.
O’Leary also said that Ryanair’s growth this year would be constrained by continued delays in the delivery of aircraft from Boeing. He added that its traffic is only expected to rise by 3 per cent to 206 million passengers in the current financial year running to 31 March 2026.
“We are seeing robust summer 25 travel demand across our network,” he added. “This year our constrained capacity growth is being allocated to those regions and airports who are abolishing aviation taxes and incentivising traffic growth.”
Ryanair said it was introducing more than 160 new routes this summer and would operate a total of 2,600 routes during the season. The airline added that fares in the peak travel period were trending “modestly” higher than a year ago.