By Conor Humphries
DUBLIN, Jan 26 (Reuters) – Ryanair on Monday boosted its forecast for average fare growth after bookings for 2026 got off to a strong start and predicted annual after-tax profit would likely jump by a third.
The Irish airline, Europe’s largest by passenger numbers, said average fares would be 1 or 2 percentage points higher for the year to March 31 than the 7% annual growth it forecast in November.
“Consumer demand is very strong. We’ve had our two best-ever booking weeks in the last couple of weeks. I see no slowdown in people wanting to get away,” Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorahan said in an interview.
“We think we will recover not only all of the 7% that we saw decline last year, but 1 or 2 percentage points on top of that,” he said.
The airline is “cautiously guiding” pre-exceptional after-tax profit to land between 2.13 billion euros and 2.23 billion euros ($2.5 billion-$2.7 billion).
That’s far better than the 1.6 billion euros it booked last year and in line with a 2.22 billion euro forecast from an LSEG poll of analysts.
Ryanair earned an after-tax profit of 115 million euros in the final three months of 2025 excluding an exceptional 85 million euro charge related to a fine from the Italian competition authority in December.
Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said in a video statement that he was confident the full 256 million euro fine would be overturned on appeal, although that could take a year or two.
Ryanair has been forced to cut capacity growth in recent years due to delays at Boeing, but relations with the U.S. firm are now going “exceedingly well”, Sorahan said.
The last four 737 MAX 200 aircraft of Ryanair’s current order are on schedule to be delivered on time by the end of February and the airline is “increasingly confident” that the first 15 of 150 new 737 MAX 10s will be delivered on time in spring 2027, he added.
Boeing has told Ryanair they expect certification of the MAX 10 between July and September next year, Sorahan said.
($1 = 0.8429 euros)
(Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
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