Welcome to the Ryanair Q1 results conference call. As always, I'm joined this morning by our Group CFO, Neil Sorahan, and we're pleased to bring you the Q1 numbers this morning. As you'll see, we posted early this morning on the ryanair.com website the Q1 results reporting a Q1 profit after tax of EUR 820 million. More than double the prior year Q1 PAT of EUR 360 million. Traffic grew 4% to 58 million passengers, but fares, as we have previously guided, have jumped significantly. On last year's weak prior year comps. Remember, the two halves of Easter were in April this year; only 1/2 was in April last year. This time last year, we had that boycott with the OTAs, which we have since resolved.
The Q1 highlights: traffic grew 4% to 58 million passengers, revenue per passenger rose 15%, average fares were up 21%, a big jump, but against a weak prior year comp. Unit cost inflation has been just 1%, which means the cost gap between us and our airline competitors across Europe has materially widened as their unit costs have jumped significantly more than that. We have very competitive fuel hedges in place that de-risk the group from the recent fuel price volatility. Currently, as we stand today, we have 86% of FY 2026 hedged at $76 a barrel. We have 181 Boeing 737 Boeing 737-8200 in our fleet of 620 aircraft, and that includes five deliveries we took in Q1. This summer, we'll operate over 160 new routes out of a total of 2,600 routes.
In recent weeks, we announced a deal to buy 30 spare CFM LEAP-1B engines at a significant discount, and we bought those to improve our resilience, not just this summer, but for the next couple of years. We're very pleased to report that Ryanair was added to the MSCI World Index. I think, and you'll see from the results, these numbers speak for themselves, so I don't propose to dwell too much on them. I would caution, however, that Q1 here was artificially boosted by the two halves of Easter being in April and a weak prior year comp. Q2 will not be as strong. Nevertheless, for outlook, FY 2026 traffic remains on track to grow by just 3% to 206 million passengers, and that is our growth is being constrained by heavily delayed Boeing deliveries.
We expect modest unit cost inflation in FY 2026 as our delivery of more Boeing 737 Boeing 737-8200, advantageous fuel hedging, and effective cost control across the group airlines help to offset dramatically increased ATC charges and higher, even though entirely unjustified, environmental costs. While S25 travel demand is strong, Q2 fare increases will be lower than what we've just reported this morning in Q1, which benefited, as I've said, from the full Easter holiday in April and weak prior year comps. We, however, now expect to recover almost all of last year's 7% fare decline. That we suffered in Q2. We expect to get back almost all of that in the current Q2. The final H1 outcome, however, is very heavily dependent on the strength of close-in bookings for the remainder of August and September. It is normal at this time of the year.
We have zero H2 visibility where the prior year fare comps normalize, and last year's modest delivery delay compensation will roll off. It remains therefore too early to provide meaningful full year profit after tax guidance. We cautiously expect to recover almost all of last year's 7% full year fare decline, which means we now expect the average fares this year will return to where they were in FY 2024. This should lead to reasonable net profits growth for FY 2026. However, the final FY 2026 outcome will remain heavily exposed to any adverse external developments, and that includes, obviously, the risks of tariff wars, macroeconomic shocks, conflict escalation in the Middle East, Ukraine, and European ATC strikes and mismanagement, which continue to bedevil our summer operations. With that, Neil, I'll hand over to you to take us through the slide presentation.
Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everybody. Ryanair, as we know, has the lowest fares and the lowest costs of any airline in Europe, and indeed our cost advantage continues to widen over competitors. We're number one for traffic and will carry 206 million passengers this year. We're number one for on-time performance and reliability with high customer satisfaction scores. Sustainalytics and other rating agencies continue to rate Ryanair very highly on ESG, and our 300 Boeing 737 MAX 10 order will underpin a decade of growth. This, coupled with our financial strength and lowest cost, makes Ryanair the long-term winner. This summer, we're operating a peak fleet of 618 aircraft, which, as I previously said, should help deliver 206 million passengers in the coming year. We have 330 aircraft on order, including the remaining 29 in the Boeing 737-8200 order book.
This should facilitate profitable growth to 300 million passengers by FY 2034. Our cost advantage continues to widen over all comers. You can see at the end of the quarter, EUR 35 per passenger ex fuel, which is now nearly 80% lower than the next nearest competitor. We expect these cost gaps to just widen further and Ryanair's competitiveness to increase over the coming years. On the quarter itself, as expected, we saw 58 million passengers, a 4% increase on last year at 94% load factors. Average fare recovered, enjoying the benefit of a full Easter in April, weak prior year comps, and modestly higher close-in bookings, so it rose by 21% to EUR 51. We saw solid performance from ancillary revenue, which was up 7% to EUR 1.39 billion, or up 3% on a per passenger basis. As a result, total revenue increased by 20% to EUR 4.34 billion.
Cost put in a strong performance, rising 5% or 1% on a per passenger basis to EUR 3.42 billion, as we saw strong fuel hedging offset significant increases in ATC, which was up 16%, and rising environmental costs. Putting all of that together, we saw profit in the quarter more than double to EUR 820 million. Balance sheet, Fortress balance sheet remains rock solid. It's BBB+ rated by both Fitch and S&P. Uniquely, Ryanair owns our Boeing 737s. They're on the balance sheet unencumbered, and liquidity remains very strong, EUR 4.4 billion in gross cash at the end of the quarter and over EUR 2 billion in net cash, which places us in a strong position to repay our maturing bonds over the next 10 months. With that, Michael, you might take us through current developments, please.
Yeah, thanks, Neil. We're seeing robust summer 2025 demand. Fares look like they will recover last year's decline. Q1 was, as we have emphasized, artificially strong. Fares are up 21%. We now expect Q2 fares to recover almost all of last year's 7% decline. We have strong forward bookings, strong pricing, close-in bookings remain reasonably robust, but they are subject to adverse news flow, particularly the close-in bookings, as we move through the remainder of August and September. Disappointingly, we'll have slower FY 2026 traffic growth. It's only 206 million passengers due to those Boeing delivery delays. We're pretty confident at this stage, though, that we'll get the remaining 29, the delayed 29 A200 aircraft will be delivered this winter well in advance of summer 2026, and therefore we'll catch up that growth to 215 million passengers in FY 2027.
That constrained capacity means we have to be much more rigorous in where we allocate that growth, and we're allocating those growths to regions like Sweden, regional Italy, Hungary, where we see regions cutting taxes. I announced a big growth in Warsaw Modlin last week, again on the back of airports stimulating traffic growth. We're very well hedged at the fuel, and these fuel hedges don't get us lower cost, but they do de-risk the group from volatility. We're 84% hedged for FY 2026 at $76 a barrel, and we're already 36% hedged for FY 2027 at $66 per barrel, a 13% saving into next year already locked away. We did buy the 30 spare CFM LEAP-1B engines. We negotiated a meaningful discount on those engines, and I think that's a sensible use of our balance sheet.
When our partners are looking to raise money, we should be able to jump in there and buy CapEx in a way that improves resilience but also lowers our costs. We're very pleased to have been included in the MSCI World Index in June, and we expect the FTSE Russell will include Ryanair when they review their index in September. The strong liquidity, as Neil has said, we have net cash of EUR 2 billion. We need those funds, though, to be able to repay. We have very large debt repayments coming in the next 12 months, an EUR 850 million bond repayment in September, and then the last EUR 1.2 billion bond in May of 2026.
We believe that this sets us up particularly with Boeing getting the Boeing 737 MAX 10 certified by the end of this year for a decade of low fare, profitable growth to 300 million passengers by FY 2034. Just to touch briefly on Boeing, as I said, we have 618 aircraft in the fleet, including 181 Boeing 737 MAX 8200, five of them delivered in Q1. The quality and the timeliness of Boeing deliveries has dramatically improved over the last 12 months. Boeing have hit their rate 38, production rate 38 on the Boeing 737 in May and did so again in June. I think that's a testament to the good job Kelly [Ortberg], Stephanie Pope, and her team are doing, particularly on the ground in Seattle. We're therefore taking the final 29 Boeing 737 MAX 8200 ahead, well ahead of summer 2026.
In fact, the first five of those aircraft are due to deliver in August of this year. Boeing asked us to take them early. It doesn't suit us because we can't deploy them, but we're happy to take them early so we guarantee we don't have any delivery delays running into summer of 2026. Boeing have advised they expect the Boeing 737 MAX 10 certification to take place, 7 and 10 certification to take place in late 2025. Might slip into Q1 of 2026, but well ahead of our first deliveries, which are due, first 15 Boeing 737 MAX 10s are due in the spring of 2027. I'm pleased to say that Boeing have now confirmed in writing their confidence that they will deliver those first 15 Boeing 737 MAX 10s to us in the spring of 2027 in time for the summer 2027 peak travel.
These aircraft will transform Ryanair's economics and further widen the operating and the cost gap between us and every other airline in Europe. These aircraft offer us 20% more seats, 228 seats. They burn 20% less fuel. They're also 50% quieter, so they will dramatically transform our cost base and make us significantly more efficient going forward. As you see, we set out a schedule there. The only change there has been FY 2026. We had originally planned to grow to 215 million. That growth has been staggered over the two years, FY 2026 and FY 2027. By which stage, we believe we will have eliminated all of the Boeing delay issues that we've been struggling with over recent years. We know already from our discussions with airports all over Europe, they can't wait for us to take these aircraft.
We could deploy all 300 of these aircraft today based on the growth deals we have at airports, existing and new airports across Europe. We are very much looking forward to those aircraft and to taking those deliveries.
As Michael already said, we expect to deliver modest 3% growth this year to 206 million passengers. Having enjoyed a strong Q1, Q2 demand is robust and, for as we believe, should recover now most of the prior year Q2 decline. I have to caution, however, that the H1 outcome remains very dependent on close-in August and September bookings, over which we do not have huge visibility at the moment. We would, however, cautiously expect at this stage that we recover almost all of the prior year 7% further decline that we saw last year. This depends on us obviously not having any tariff wars or economic downturns in the second half of the year. On costs, we are sticking with our previous guidance of modest unit cost inflation. As we see, our strong fuel hedges help offset rising ATC route charges and environmental costs.
As we look into the second half of the year, as is always the case at this time of year, we have no visibility into H2. Again, I would flag that comps get tougher in the second half of the year where we saw the normalization of OTAs and fares in Q3 and Q4 last year. Indeed, we will start to see the modest Boeing delay compensation unwind as we take delivery of those final 29 Boeing 737 MAX 8200 this year. I think it is probably too early to give meaningful profit after tax guidance at this stage. We do, however, see fare recovery. We do have strong cost control in the business, and on the back of that, we would expect reasonable profit growth, but it is too soon to put numbers on that. This all is very much dependent, as is always the case, on no external shocks.
As long as we do not see economic downturns, tariff wars, geopolitical risks, and ATC mismanagement, then I think we are on track to perform well this year. Indeed, with the 300 aircraft order book, the strong balance sheet, in a strong position to grow profitably to 300 million passengers per annum by FY 2034.
Michael, Neil, good morning. Certain materials, Ryanair's Q1 pattern more than doubled, staying 120 million. What were the key drivers?
Yeah, we saw traffic increase by 4% to just under 58 million passengers. This was driven with fare recovery, 21% increase in fares, although we did benefit very much from having a full Easter in April of this year. As you'll recall, there were weak prior year comps, and then there was modestly stronger than we would have anticipated close-in bookings, particularly in May and June. On the other revenue line, ancillaries, we saw another solid performance from our ancillary revenue increase by 7% to EUR 1.39 billion, or on a per passenger basis, a 3% increase to just over EUR 24. Cost put in a strong performance, rising just 1% on a per passenger basis, as we saw the benefits of our strong fuel hedging offset, a 16% increase in ATC route charges, and rising environmental costs.
We are seeing the likes of the SAF blend mandates coming in this year, free ETS allowances starting to roll off. Overall, a good performance in the quarter.
Ryanair enjoys competitive fuel hedging. What's your current position?
Yeah, for the remainder of FY 2026, we're 85% hedged at $76 a barrel. That's a 4% saving on our hedge price in the prior year. Already for FY 2027, we're 36% hedged at $66 a barrel, a 13% saving on our FY 2026 hedge rate. We're in a strong position both to make significant fuel cost savings, but also to eliminate the kind of volatility we saw and have suffered in recent months.
You mentioned environmental costs are increasing. How much are they this year?
Yeah, it's a big number. It was EUR 850 million last year included in our fuel cost, just over EUR 4 per passenger. This year, with the SAF blend mandates coming in, with the ETS free allowances rolling off, that's going to increase to over EUR 5, EUR 5.30 per passenger, or about EUR 1.1 billion. Significant number, as I said. You know I think it's remarkable that none of this gets recycled back into environmental projects across Europe. We don't see any of it going back into the production of SAF. We don't see it going into latest technology aircraft. I think if Europe are really serious about competitiveness, it's timely that they take a hard look at this and abolish these penal taxes because they're not delivering from an environmental perspective.
Turning to the balance sheet, Ryanair's industry-leading balance sheet is BBB+ rated. What are the key collets?
I think the obvious one is the 600 Boeing 737 fleet, which is entirely unencumbered. We have strong liquidity. We're currently at the quarter end, sitting on about EUR 4.4 billion of gross cash, just over EUR 2 billion of net cash. We need those funds as we have two very large bond repayments coming at us in the next 10 months, an EUR 850 million bond in September and an EUR 1.2 billion bond next May. That puts us in a strong position to pay down our debts and hopefully by the middle of next year be entirely debt-free with a large fleet of aircraft completely unencumbered.
I think that maximizes or increases the financial flexibility, which also materially widens the cost gap between us and our competitors in Europe, most of whom are heavily indebted either through bond and aircraft leasing, and they're exposed to expensive financing and aircraft leasing costs at a time when we own our aircraft. The only cost we pay up, we suffer on those is depreciation.
What is FY 2026 CapEx guidance?
I think we'll be close to about EUR 2.2 billion. Now, that reflects the 30 spare CFM LEAP-1B engines that we announced back in July. It doesn't include any CapEx that may or may not be needed in relation to the engine shops that we're looking at developing towards the back end of the decade. There may or may not be some CapEx in relation to tooling and spare parts this year. Of course, it's heavily dependent on Boeing delivering the aircraft when they say they will, although we'd have a high level of confidence that we'll get them all ahead of the summer next year.
Moving on to shareholder returns. Can you please update on the current share buyback?
Yeah, as you know, we launched a EUR 750 million buyback program in May. We're very early into that program, but during Q1, we bought and canceled about 2.8 million shares at a cost of about EUR 60 million. We're happy with the broker's progress on the latest buyback, particularly given the MSCI indexation and lower market volumes.
When is the next ordinary dividend?
We have declared a final dividend of EUR 22.70, and as always the case, this is subject to AGM approval in September. As soon as it is approved, it will be paid fairly quickly after that.
Shifting to fleet and growth. What's the latest update on the 737 MAX 8-200 deliveries?
Yeah, so we took five additional Boeing 737 MAX 8200 in quarter one. Currently, we have 181 Boeing 737 MAX 8200 in the fleet. We're 29 aircraft short. We will take all of those deliveries this winter, well in advance of summer of 2026. I think the fact that Boeing have in recent months been hitting their rate 38 will enable them to go to the FAA and get clearance to increase to rate 42. Leaves us much more confident that we will complete this winter the entire 210 Boeing 737-8200 MAX order and puts us in good shape then, we think, for the Boeing 737 MAX 10 deliveries as well in the spring of 2027.
Is there any update on the Boeing 737 MAX 10 certification?
Boeing are still indicating that they expect the 7 and the 10 to be certified towards the back end of 2025, with a slight risk that it might slip into early 2026. We have received confirmation from them recently that they are working very much on the basis that they will be delivering our first 15 Boeing 737 MAX 10s as per contract in spring 2027.
What's the latest on aviation tariffs?
Like most industries, there's still no real clarity. The U.S., however, has postponed the tariff implementation from the 9th of July to the 1st of August. We believe from publicly available sources that there's progress being made on the EU-U.S. tariff negotiations. However, there is cautious optimism that commercial aircraft and aircraft leasing will be exempted from tariffs, primarily because the U.S. is such a big exporter of aircraft engines and spare parts. However, in our agreements with Boeing, the purchase price is agreed. It's a fixed purchase price, and therefore tariffs will not be a problem for us. We will work with Boeing to minimize any tariff impact on our aircraft deliveries. We would hope that commercial aircraft will be exempt from the next round of tariffs, as they have been for many years since the 1979 tariff exemption agreement.
What are your views on European short haul capacity?
I'd expect European capacity to be constrained for at least the next five years to 2030. We see the two big OEMs, Boeing and Airbus, still behind on their production targets. Order books are full out to probably the middle of the 2030s. We have the Pratt & Whitney engine issue continues to rumble on. M&A is kicking off again in Europe. Recently, we had AIRFRANCE saying they're going to bring their stake in SAS up to 60%. The new government in Portugal are now going to put TAP up for sale in the coming weeks. Air Europa is getting more mention. I see capacity usually constrained for some time to come.
Where are you allocating your constrained 3% growth this year?
To those countries and regions in Europe who are abolishing environmental taxes, Sweden, Hungary. Regional Italy, where we've announced new bases this year, and also to those airports who, like-minded with Ryanair, are stimulating growth. I point to the fact that we announced a doubling of our Warsaw. We plan to treble our Warsaw Modlin traffic over the next five years, rising 1.5 to 5 million passengers on the back of a long-term multi-year growth agreement. We expect that trend will continue. There will continue to be new base growth in Sicily, Poland, Modlin, in Hungary, and in Sweden. We're also expected to be announcing more new bases and new routes this winter as we take delivery of 29 aircraft for summer 2026.
Moving on to ownership control and ESG. Ryanair joined MSCI World Index in June. Is there any update on FTSE Russell?
Firstly, I think I have to say we very much welcome Ryanair's full inclusion in the MSCI World Index. This has been a positive development for our shareholders. Looking at the criteria for FTSE Russell, we would expect to be included in their index when they do their next calibration in September, although they have flagged that any inclusion will be on a phased basis, probably over a two-year period. Still, if it happens, another positive development.
What are Ryanair's Q1 ESG highlights?
I suppose it's the taking delivery of five new Boeing 737-8200, 4% more seats, burn 16% less fuel, and 20% less CO2 emissions. We also continue to benefit from the winglet retrofit on the NG fleet. These winglets deliver 1.5% fuel efficiency and a 6% reduction in noise. I think we also, the fact that we bought 30 new spare fuel-efficient CFM LEAP-1B engines at a reasonable discount shows our continuing commitment to buying new technology that will lower our carbon consumption, lower our emissions. We expect that trend will continue. Although, as Neil has said, you know we and the other European airlines are now campaigning vocally for a reform of Europe's failed environmental tax regime. It is indefensible that European citizens and European airlines are the only ones paying environmental taxes.
The way to deliver that level playing field is to move ETS tax rates into line with CORSIA, which is what the long-haul non-European airlines pay. We're continuing to demand that move to CORSIA rates ASAP. If Ursula von der Leyen again is serious about delivering competitiveness in Europe, as the Draghi report has pointed to, we need a level playing field in the case of environmental taxes for air travel in Europe.
Can you give more detail on the LEAP engine deal?
Yeah, it's a big deal. It's a $500 million investment at list price, although, as Michael said, there is a reasonable discount in there. That will see our pool of spare engines increase to 120, which is a massive investment by Ryanair in our operational resilience. Importantly, these LEAP engines will be able to be used on not only our Boeing 737-8200, but on the Boeing 737 MAX 10s when they come into the fleet. They will deliver over the next two years. In fact, we've already taken some of them this year, this summer, which helps underpin our 2025 summer operational resilience as well.
Lastly, on outlook, what's the group's FY 2026 outlook?
As we have said, we expect traffic growth would be constrained by only 3% this year to 206 million passengers. Q2 demand, that is the September quarter, is robust. We now expect fares will recover most of the prior year's 7% Q2 fare decline. However, the final outturn for H1 is heavily dependent on the strength of close-in bookings for the remainder of August and September. Nevertheless, we now cautiously expect to recover almost all of last year's 7% fare decline in the full year. As previously guided, we see modest unit cost inflation up 1%-2% this year as our very strong fuel hedges are offsetting runaway ATC cost increases and rising environmental taxes. It is still too early to provide a meaningful guide for full-year profit after tax guidance as we have zero H2 visibility and much tougher prior year comps in the second half of the year.
I think it is reasonable to expect FY 2026 profit growth, reasonable profit growth with fare recovery and strong cost control. The final outcome will, however, continue to be subject to shocks, tariff wars, conflicts, and recurring and unacceptable ATC strikes. We had two ATC strikes, the French ATC strikes on the 3rd and 4th of June. We were forced to cancel 500 flights over those two days, canceling the flights of nearly 100,000 passengers. About 90% of those flights would have continued to operate if Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission had simply protected overflights over France. It is simply unacceptable that the Commission continues to sit on its hand, allowing the single market to be shut down by a tiny number of French Air Traffic Controllers. We live in hope of seeing some reform and some move towards competitiveness within the EU Commission.
Thank you for that. Neil, thank you very much. Jamie, thank you for the questions. We look forward to talking to you on the conference call, which will be held later on this morning at 10:00 A.M. Thank you.