Ryanair Holdings (RYAAY) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2022

July 25, 2022 5:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Michael O’Leary

Hi, good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Ryanair Q1 Results Release Conference. My name is Michael O’Leary, the Group CEO. I'm joined this morning by Neil Sorahan, our Group CFO.

Neil Sorahan

Good morning.

Michael O’Leary

We'll open as usual with some opening remarks from me and then I'm going to ask Neil to take you through the slide presentation and then we'll mix and match during a Q&A session. So this morning Ryanair reported a Q1 profit after tax of €170 million as traffic recovered strongly post-COVID but at lower fares. That €170 million PAT is before exceptionals, but is well below the €223 million PAT we reported in the Q1 of FY 2020, which was the last year pre-COVID just to put in some context.

Highlights of the quarter. During Q1, traffic recovered very strongly to 45.5 million passengers from 8.1 million in the previous year. That recovery would have been stronger but for the significant damage that April and Easter suffered both bookings and fares as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February. Prior to this summer peak, we've taken delivery of 73 737-8200 Gamechangers. That Summer 22 capacity is on sale at about 115% of Summer 2019, in other words the pre-COVID capacity.

We've also this morning announced that our hedging for FY 2024, so next year has been increased to 30%. Currently in the current year, we're hedged at 80%. Net debt has significantly reduced to just €400 million at the end of the quarter, that's down from €1.4 billion on 31st of March, thanks to very strong and positive cash flows from bookings and trading. And we're also pleased this morning to announce that the majority of the 29 A320 leases and our subsidiary Lauda Europe have been extended by up to four years to now to 2028 at advantageous rates.

Just a couple of quick themes, this summer we're very proud to be operating 73 of the new Boeing 737 Gamechanger aircraft. These aircrafts carry 4% more passengers, but they burn 16% less fuel and also reduce our noise emissions by up to 40%. We're continuing to invest in our partnership with Trinity College Dublin Sustainable Aviation Research Center. And in April, we're very pleased to have announced a partnership with Neste to power up to one-third of all of our flights to and from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam with a 40% SAF blend. In April, Sustainalytics ranked Ryanair as the Number One airline in Europe, the Number Two globally for our ESG performance.