Ryanair to be ‘bigger than BA’
The low-cost airline, Ryanair, announced today that its profits before tax increased by 59% and claimed that in the next three years the company would be bigger than both Lufthansa and British Airways.
Ryanair announced that in the year to the end of March 2003 the company’s profits before tax increased 59% to ?239.4 million from ?150.4 million in the year before.
The company claimed that the good performance was due to a 42% increase in passenger numbers and 35% increase in revenues, despite a 6% reduction in average fares. Over the year Ryanair’s passenger numbers increased to 15.7 million compared to 11.09 million in the year before.
Ryanair claimed that the fact that the company has the lowest costs and airfares in Europe meant that the company could continue to be profitable despite the impact from high fuel prices, the war in Iraq, the impact of SARS and the continuing effect of the economic downturn in many European countries.
Ryanair’s Chief Executive, Michael O’Leary commented, ‘These results demonstrate how robust Ryanair’s lowest fares business model is in Europe.’
He continued, ‘We will continue to lower costs and we will use these low costs and record profit margins to drive down fares even faster and stimulate rapid growth.’
The company claimed that with up to 40 new airports and 9 potential new bases presently under negotiation they would have more growth opportunities than they needed for the next five years.
The increase in capacity will mean that Ryanair will be able to carry more than 30 million international scheduled passengers per annum at which point it will overtake both Lufthansa and British Airways to become the largest international scheduled airline in the world.
The company claims that it will continue to deliver substantial traffic growth over the next year. It aims to continue to drive down the cost of its fares and to deliver a 20% profit margin taking the company into its sixteenth consecutive year of increased profits.
