Ryanair has increased its quarterly profits - despite the pilot shortage that caused it to cancel a whole collection of flights.
The company has announced a 12% rise to €106m for Q3 of 2017.
Announcing the rise this morning, the airline said passenger numbers are up 6% despite the cancellations sparked by pilot rostering problems.
Ryan McGrath from Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland says the airline is still cautious for the year ahead:
“The focus was on average ticket prices, which were down 4%,” he said. “That was a slight miss, I think.
“We had been looking for an increase in ticket prices - basically based on the bankruptcies that we saw in Air Italia and Air Berlin of last year.
“Costs fell 1%.
“In revenue terms, that came in, in line at €1.4bn and net income was up 12% that was €105m.”
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said the company was “pleased” to report the profits increase “after a very challenging Q3.”
“Following our pilot rostering failure in Sept, the painful decision to ground 25 aircraft ensured that punctuality of our operations quickly returned to our normal 90% average,” he said.
“Our AGB (Always Getting Better) customer service programme, coupled with 4% lower fares, stimulated 6% traffic growth to 30.4m at an industry leading 96% load factor.”
The airline last week announced an expansion of its routes in the Middle East.
It said its first flights to Jordan will see 14 routes to Amman and Aqaba airports.
It claimed this will deliver almost 500,000 customers per year.
