Ryanair today (June 1) announced full year Profits of €319m after tax, an increase of 204% over last years €105m profit. The airline also proposes to pay a one-off dividend of €500m (€0.34 per share) in October, subject to shareholder approval at its September AGM.
Annoucing those results, O'Reilly said:
Annoucing those results, O'Reilly said:
“The principal highlights of the past year include:-
• Profits trebled to €319m.
• Traffic growth of 14% to 67m.
• 51 net new aircraft (y/e fleet 232xB737-800’s).
• 8 new bases Bari, Brindisi, Faro, Leeds, Oslo Rygge, Pescara, Porto, Trapani (total 42).
• 284 new routes (total 940).
• Passenger service statistics further improved (No 1 on time major airline).
• A dividend of €500m proposed (€846m returned to shareholders over the past 3 years).
Results
We can be proud of delivering a 200% increase in profits and traffic growth during a global recession when many of our competitors have announced losses or cutbacks, while more have gone bankrupt including, Bluewings (Ger), Globespan (UK), My Air (Italy), Segal Air and Sky Europe (Slovakia). Revenues rose 2% to €2,988m as air fares fell 13% while traffic grew 14% to 67m. Unit costs fell 19% due to lower fuel and rigorous cost control. Ancillary sales grew 11% to €664m slightly slower than traffic growth, and amounted to 22% of total revenues.
Fuel costs declined 29% to €894m as oil prices fell from $104 to $62 pbl. We extended our hedging program to 90% for FY11 (at $730 per tonne), 50% of Q1 FY12 (at $750 per tonne) and 20% of Q2 FY12 (at $750 per tonne). Excluding fuel other unit costs fell by 3%.
Capacity cuts by many European flag and non flag carriers caused traffic to fall at many major European airports. We are inundated with offers from large and small airports competing with lower costs and efficient facilities to win Ryanair’s growth. Our airport and handling unit costs fell by 9% despite steep increases at Dublin and Stansted. New routes and bases launched this year will ensure that despite a scandalous (up to) 40% increase in charges at Dublin airport, our airport and handling unit costs will decline again in FY11.
The balance sheet has strengthened as cash has risen by €535m to €2.8bln. We took advantage of recent historically low rates to lock in many of our 2009/2010 deliveries at an all inclusive long term interest cost of under 4% pa. We are fully financed for the remaining 34 deliveries out to January 2011.
Our long term dollar hedging strategy for capex, which extends to the end of 2011, means that we will be purchasing aircraft in 2010/2011 at exceptionally low euro prices with a €/$ exchange rate of 1.46, significantly better than current rates.
Current Issues.
As we predicted Ireland’s tourism industry collapsed in 2009. Traffic at Dublin fell by over 3m (-13%) in a year when Ryanair’s traffic grew by 8m. Traffic at Dublin in 2010 to date has fallen by a further 14%. Ireland’s damaging €10 tourist tax and the govt. imposed (up to) 40% cost increases at Dublin airport will lead to a second year of government inspired tourism collapses. The opening of the DAA’s €1.2bln T2 in November is unnecessary as capacity at T1 has reached 30m pa while Dublin’s traffic will fall to under 18m in 2010. The DAA should mothball T2 which will reduce their operating costs, slash their high fees, and the government must scrap this damaging €10 tourist tax if Ireland is to return to being a competitive destination and reverse this 2 year tourism collapse.
The Icelandic volcanic ash “monitoring” led to repeated, unnecessary, closures of large swathes of European airspace over 18 days from the 15th of April. These closures have caused the cancellation of 9,400 Ryanair flights, and the loss of 1.5m passengers up to the 18th of May. The full cost of these cancellations will not be known for some time and will depend on the claims we receive under the unfair and disproportionate EU261 regulations. We estimate the cumulative exceptional cost of these unnecessary cancellations is approx. €50m and we will continue to up-date shareholders quarterly on the likely final outcome. The recent revisions of the VAAC charts for guesstimating the position of non-existent volcanic ash “clouds” highlights the mismanagement of these eruptions by EU governments and regulatory agencies, who repeatedly and unnecessarily closed European air space.
EU 261 is a manifestly unfair, disproportionate and discriminatory regulation which requires airlines to reimburse expenses of disrupted passengers even in force majeure cases. While volcanic ash airspace closures disrupted 1.5m Ryanair passengers over a period of 18 days we believe that airlines should not be exposed to such unlimited liability when the cause of these cancellations were clearly beyond the airlines control. Other competing transport providers such as coaches and ferries are not obliged under EU 261 to meet the cost of care during force majeure events. EU 261 needs to be amended to include a force majeure clause to relieve EU airlines of the “duty to care” obligations in such cases.
The EU 261 legislation is also disproportionate as there is no cap on either the quantum or the period that air passengers can claim for. This discriminates against airlines because coaches and ferries have their liability limited to the ticket price paid which caps their exposure. The airlines’ liability to compensation and right to care reimbursements should also be limited to the ticket price paid. This would restore proportionality to the regulation since air passengers who have chosen to pay lower fares, and have benefited from significant savings, cannot and should not expect to receive unlimited compensation or reimbursements.
Proposed €500m Dividend.
In December 2009 we ended our discussions for a 200 new Boeing aircraft order. Since we don’t anticipate a new deal with Boeing for the foreseeable future, our gross capex will fall substantially over the next 3 years. We expect to generate up to €1bn in surplus cash by the end of FY13. We now propose to return €500m of this cash in a one off dividend in October 2010 subject to shareholder approval at our September AGM. We also anticipate that there may be a further €500m (absent any new aircraft orders or other capex) available for return to shareholders either via share buy backs or another one off dividend by the end of FY13. This €500m dividend if approved in September will bring to €846m the amount of funds returned to shareholders by Ryanair in share buy backs and dividends over the past 3 years.
Outlook.
We expect to grow traffic in FY11 by 11% to 73.5m (subject to volcanic ash disruptions). Fuel costs will increase by €300m. However, subject to no further air space closures and an early return to normal bookings, we expect airfares (which fell 13% last year) to rise by between 5% to 10% due to the positive impact of our new routes and bases. Some of these, such as Faro and Malaga, are already producing higher fares during the summer although they will lead to a 10% increase in sector length. Q1 will be adversely impacted by weaker yields in May and June due to the volcanic ash disruptions, and the inclusion of part of Easter revenues in the prior period, as a result Q1 Net Profits are expected to be slightly lower than last year. Overall we expect costs per passenger to rise by 4% in 2010/11 (sector length adjusted they will fall by 6%). If as we expect, higher yields offset increased fuel and other operating costs, then profits (excluding exceptional costs from the recent volcanic ash disruptions) for the coming year should rise by between 10% to 15% to a range of approx. €350m to €375m”.
Source: Air Transport News
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