Ryanair’s first half net profit soars to almost $750 million, new 2012 “Girls of Ryanair” calendar for charity

Ryanair Boeing 737-8A3 WL EI-EFD (msn 35011) (Comunitat Valenciana) PMI (Javier Rodriguez), originally uploaded by Airliners Gallery.

Ryanair (Dublin) announced today a 20% increase in half year profits to €544 million ($749.6 million). Revenues rose 24% to €2.7bn, traffic grew 12% and ave. fares increased 13%. Unit costs rose 13% due mainly to longer sectors and a 37% increase in fuel costs. Excluding fuel, sector length adjusted unit costs did not increase at all.

According to the airline, “Ancillary sales rose 15% to €487m, slightly faster than traffic growth. We extended our reserved seating trial from 40 to 80 routes, and if successful we will extend it to more routes in our network. We also launched the Ryanair “Cash Passport” Mastercard prepaid card in the UK and Italy, and we intend to roll it out across the network over the coming months, to provide passengers with a no cost prepaid card for use on Ryanair.com (to avoid our optional admin. fees) and many other retailers.

New routes and bases continue to perform well. Our 45th base in Manchester opened last week. Our 46th (Wroclaw – Poland) and 47th (Baden Baden – Germany) bases will start in March 2012. We also plan to open our 48th base at Warsaw (Modlin) as soon as our current negotiations with the airport have been concluded. The recession and higher oil prices continues to force competitors to consolidate, and cut capacity and routes, which creates further growth opportunities for Ryanair as European airports compete aggressively to win our route and traffic growth.

Unit costs increased 13% primarily due to longer sectors and a 37% rise in fuel costs. Excluding fuel, sector length adjusted unit costs were flat, as we continued to rigorously control costs despite a 2% pay increase, higher Eurocontrol fees, and substantially higher charges at Dublin Airport which were recently described as “insane” by Aer Lingus and “too excessive” by Etihad. We are 90% hedged for FY12 at $820 per tonne (approx. $82 pbl), up 12% on last year but significantly below current prices. We have recently extended our FY13 fuel cover and are 90% hedged for H1 at $990 per tonne ($99pbl) and 50% for H2 at $980 per tonne ($98pbl).”

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Never dull, Ryanair has announced the winners of its “Girls of Ryanair” 2012 calendar. All proceeds go to charity.