RYAOF - Ryanair Holdings plc (RYAAY) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-05-20 17:54:02 ET
Ryanair Holdings plc (RYAAY)
Q4 2024 Results Conference Call
May 20, 2024 05:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Michael O'Leary - CEO
Neil Soraha - CFO
Peter Larkin - Head of IR
Presentation
Michael O'Leary
All right. So good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Ryanair Full Year Results. I'm Michael O'Leary, the Group CEO. And I'm joined this morning by Neil Sorahan, the Group CFO. Earlier this morning, we published the full year results for the last 12 months ended 31 March, 2024. In that, we recorded a full year profit after tax growth of 34% to an after tax profit of €1.92 billion as traffic grew 9% to 184 million passengers, which is 20% -- 23% more than our pre-COVID traffic. The highlights for the last 12 months, start off with the traffic growth of 9% to 184 million passengers. It would have been slightly higher, but for the Boeing delivery delays. The biggest challenge was our fuel bill rose by 32%, an increase of €1.25 billion to just over €5 billion. And yet, we were still able to report an increase in profitability. Our ESG ratings were upgraded. We're an MSCI A-rated performance, Climate Disclosure Project have rated us an A minus. And we have a very strong 85% customer satisfaction score achieved over the last 12 months. We've taken delivery of 146 new Boeing 737 Gamechanger aircraft. It brings the fleet to just under 600 aircraft at the end of March. It will again have been slightly higher but we're still so struggling with Boeing delivery delays. With these new aircraft, we've opened five new bases and over 200 new routes for summer 2024 as we continue to stimulate significant growth across Europe.
The big news on cost is that for the full year March '25, fuel is over 70% hedged at just under $80 per barrel, locking in a saving thus far on hedge fuel of €450 million for the full year. We declared a maiden interim dividend of €400 million payable in calendar 2024 and we would expect to do something similar again in 2025. And again, we point back to the key, which is our 300 Boeing 737 MAX 10 aircraft orders, the first of which we believe will deliver in the spring of 2027 underpins our growth strategy to 300 million passengers by the early 2030s. Just to touch briefly on fleet. Boeing delivery delays have been one of the bigger challenges this year. We expect to be operating about 158 Gamechangers by the end of July, that would be about 23 aircraft short of our contracted deliveries. There remains a risk that Boeing -- that those Boeing deliveries could slip further, but we think it's unlikely. We're in close contact with the management team led by Stephanie Pope in Seattle, who we believe is doing a good job. But these delays will mean that more of the traffic growth in FY25 will occur in the lower yielding second half of the year than we'd originally planned. In order to maximize the deliveries, we're going to continue to take deliveries of these Gamechanger aircraft through the peak months of July, August and September, but we won't be able to put those aircraft on sale because we have no certainty on the delivery dates. Lauda has also recently extended three, obviously, 320 leases from 2024 out to 2028 but without any increase in the lease cost, which is important....
Ryanair Holdings plc (RYAAY) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript