Ryanair CFO on Q1 results: “traffic has rebounded quite strongly”

Ryanair Holdings plc (LON: RYA) reported a wider than expected net loss for the fiscal first quarter on Monday. The budget airline said signs of improvement were evident in Q1, but there was still a lot of room to cover before it returns to pre-pandemic levels. According to CFO Neil Sorahan:

Ryanair’s Q1 financial performance

Ryanair reported £233 million of net loss for the quarter that concluded on 30^th June versus the year-ago figure of £158.23 million in loss. This compares to the FactSet consensus of £131.73 million of loss.

The Irish air carrier generated £316.72 million of revenue in the recent quarter – an increase from 107.03 million last year. According to FactSet, experts had forecast a higher £335.62 million in revenue.

Ryanair expects to fly up to 100 million passengers this year, which means it will either break even this year or face a small loss only. It flew over 5 million passengers in June and expects the number to jump to 9 million this month and more than 10 million in August.

The rising risk of the new delta variant, as per Ryanair, is keeping the COVID-related uncertainty in place that continues to hurt its financial performance in 2022. While summer bookings were strong, fares, it added, were still below pre-Coronavirus levels.

CFO Neil Sorahan’s comments on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”

Commenting on the financial update on Monday, CFO Sorahan said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”:

Ryanair shares are about 4% up on Monday.