logo
Ryanair profits more than double to €820m

Ryanair profits more than double to €820m

Irish Times7 days ago
Airline Ryanair's profits more than doubled to €820 million in the three months to the end of June, figures published on Monday show.
Ryanair Holdings said it carried 57.9 million passengers from the end of March to the end of June, the first quarter of its financial year, an increase of 4 per cent over the same period in 2024.
Profit after tax grew 128 per cent to €820 million from €360 million as sales increased 20 per cent to €4.34 billion.
Michael O'Leary, chief executive, said that fares in the first quarter benefited substantially from a having a full Easter holiday in April.
READ MORE
He noted that full-year traffic remained on track to grow just 3 per cent to 206 million passengers, a result of delayed deliveries of new aircraft from Boeing.
'While summer 2025 demand is strong, quarter two fare increases will be lower than in quarter one and we now expect to recover almost all of the 7 per cent fare decline we saw in the previous year's quarter two,' Mr O'Leary said.
He added that it was too early to give meaningful profit after tax guidance for the current financial year, which ends on March 31st 2026.
However, he noted that the airline 'cautiously expected' to recover almost all of last year's 7 per cent slide in fares.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Colin Sheridan: GAA not making the most of cultural goldmines that is the All-Ireland finals
Colin Sheridan: GAA not making the most of cultural goldmines that is the All-Ireland finals

Irish Examiner

time18 minutes ago

  • Irish Examiner

Colin Sheridan: GAA not making the most of cultural goldmines that is the All-Ireland finals

All-Ireland final Sunday. Kerry versus Donegal. Tradition versus turf. Colm Cooper's ghost versus Michael Murphy's shadow. One hundred thousand pilgrims in polyester descend upon Dublin, each clutching a flag, a hip flask, and the faint hope of finding a toilet somewhere north of the Gresham that isn't decorated like a Francis Bacon painting. It should be a weekend of national significance. It should stop the country. But instead, it sneaks in like a tummy bug and leaves just as quickly, a cultural blink-and-you'll-miss-it, gone before the spilled pints on Dorset Street have a chance to dry. This is exclusive subscriber content. Already a subscriber? Sign in Take us with you this summer. Annual €130€65 Best value Monthly €12€6 / month

Every Irish person contributes €53.20 a month to the EU. We should be prepared to pay more
Every Irish person contributes €53.20 a month to the EU. We should be prepared to pay more

Irish Times

time18 minutes ago

  • Irish Times

Every Irish person contributes €53.20 a month to the EU. We should be prepared to pay more

The European Commission's publication of its draft of the union's €2 trillion 2028-2034 budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework ( MFF ), once again opens up a tortuous two years of likely acrimonious budget negotiations. Twenty seven states and the European Parliament must unanimously agree – in talks as complicated as four-dimensional chess – a new package of political imperatives, from defence, immigration, climate change, industrial innovation and inflation to safeguarding historic programmes such as CAP and cohesion. By all appearances, this will be an utterly impossible reconciliation. Helping to steer a path towards it will be the onerous central challenge of next year's Irish presidency . And complicating that challenge for cash-strapped Dublin negotiators will be a plethora of threats to programmes that are particularly important to us to us – CAP; changes to delivery mechanisms; new demands such as defence; and arguments about the scale of increasing burdens on budget net contributors. In truth, according to Zsolt Darvas from think tank Bruegel , MFF spending needs to double to finance the climate transition and pay off its Covid-19 debts. His views echo those in an important report last year from former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, calling for an additional €800 billion a year of private- and public-sector investment to revive Europe's economic competitiveness. READ MORE The commission's budget is more modest, some €1.816 trillion (plus €165 billion in pandemic recovery debt repayments), up from the current 1.1 per cent of union gross national income to 1.15 per cent. And all at a time when member states are all adamant they will not pay a penny more, although commission president Ursula von der Leyen insists unconvincingly their contributions do not need to go up. [ The Irish Times view on the EU budget: major barriers to getting an agreement Opens in new window ] Irish farmers should be pleased to see direct income payments to farmers ring-fenced. However, agricultural economists here worry that rural development and environmental support payments are to be hived off into a broader regional fund pot and are likely to be squeezed – similar to the cohesion fund for poorer regions, which was once an important Irish staple. MEPs from the regions are also already screaming blue murder at the 'renationalisation' or centralisation of regional funding – 27 national plans would replace more than 500 current programmes. They are alarmed it would substantially reduce regional autonomy and funding which makes up more than one-third of the current budget. Von der Leyen's juggling trick also involves fancy footwork in respect of expanding the union's 'own resources' – or funding from non-member state sources. Such taxation needs to be targeted so that it does not impinge on the domestic tax base and revenues of governments. Most controversially this time is the suggestion of levying a tax on companies with a net annual turnover of at least €100 million. This is expected to generate only €6.8 billion but is already facing determined opposition. Speaking like an Irish finance minister, Germany's chancellor Friedrich Merz has warned that 'there is no question of the EU taxing companies, as the EU has no legal basis for this'. Other proposed new 'own resources' include taxes targeting electric waste (around €15 billion annually), tobacco products/companies (€11.2 billion), a carbon border tax (€1.4 billion), and a tax on revenues generated by emissions trading (€9.6 billion). EU capitals will also worry how the new budget would affect the politically sensitive difference between national contributions and receipts. [ Proposed €2tn EU budget would increase funding for defence Opens in new window ] From 1973 to 2018 Ireland was a net recipient, in nominal terms, of more than €40 billion in EU funds. By 2023, 10 countries, including Ireland, were net contributors, and 17 were net beneficiaries. Top of the net contributors were Germany (€19.8 billion), France (€9.3 billion), with Ireland in eighth place (€1.3 billion). Poland was the top net beneficiary, receiving €7.1 billion. Ireland was second in net contribution per head, at €240 per person. Courtesy of our growing relative wealth (measured dubiously by 'GDP per cap') we displaced Luxembourg in 2024 in paying the most to the EU budget on a gross per capita basis – with every Irish person contributing some €53.20 a month to the union's coffers compared to the EU average of €25.20 and Germans' €29.70. Bulgarians contributed €10.70 a month. Net cash contributions have been seized on by many national politicians and the press as evidence that the countries of the supposedly indolent south are unfairly milking the system at the expense of fiscally responsible northerners. But the real benefits of membership to the countries of the north amount to far more than can be measured by such direct transfer figures. Apart from the progressive aims of redressing EU-wide economic imbalances, helping poorer neighbours and levelling the playing field, the EU provides huge indirect and non-cash benefits disproportionately to net contributing members such as Ireland. These include financial rewards from the European Central Bank in maintaining financial stability and financial returns, valuable access to the single market and research grants through the Horizon programme. Making the political case for increasing our contribution yet again will not be easy but it must be done.

Home prices will rise 5% in the next year then level off, say estate agents
Home prices will rise 5% in the next year then level off, say estate agents

Irish Times

time18 minutes ago

  • Irish Times

Home prices will rise 5% in the next year then level off, say estate agents

Irish home prices are expected to rise by a further 5 per cent over the next 12 months, amid ongoing supply shortages, according to a survey of estate agent members of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI). However, 60 per cent of those polled see prices levelling off soon, with a further 18 per cent saying that they have already peaked – after a dozen years of continuous growth. Irish residential property prices have soared almost 165 per cent from their post-crisis lows in 2013, the SCSI noted, citing Central Statistics Office (CSO) data. Affordability has worsened over the period, with many dual-income households now facing 'steep deficits when attempting to buy a home', the report said. 'Over the past five years, more than half of agents have consistently highlighted low stock levels, stressing that constrained supply remains a fundamental issue impacting the market,' said SCSI president Gerard O'Toole. READ MORE The Government, formed in January with a strong mandate to tackle the State's housing crisis, is widely expected to fall well short of its target for 41,000 homes to be completed this year as it eyes 300,000 new homes by 2030. The Central Bank of Ireland said earlier this month that it was 'surprised' by the lack of progress and that it now estimates that only 32,500 units to be delivered in 2025. Some 30,330 homes were built in 2024. Mr O'Toole called on the Government to make the new housing activation office, aimed at addressing barriers to the delivery of vital public infrastructure projects needed to enable greater housing development, fully operational 'as soon as possible'. How will the updated National Development Plan shape Ireland in years to come? Listen | 35:59 A dearth of second-hand homes on the market has also driven prices. Sales instructions have also reduced in the past 12 months, according to the SCSI survey. 'The overall activity levels suggest low vendor demand to list properties, which may reflect broader market uncertainties and challenges such as the lack of available stock to move to,' noted the report. The pace of small landlords putting properties up for sale and exiting the market also appears to have eased. Buy-to-let investors accounted for 29 per cent of sales instructions in the first half of the year, down from 40 per cent for the same period in 2024, according to the report. Irish home prices rose at an annual rate of 7.9 per cent in May, led by properties outside of Dublin, according to the latest figures from the CSO. The surge has also been fuelled by falling interest rates. The European Central Bank (ECB) cut its rates for the eighth time in a year last month, leaving its key deposit rate at 2 per cent, half of where it stood in early June 2024 amid a battle against inflation. While the ECB kept rates on hold at a meeting last year, most economists expect it to reduce borrowing costs again later this year, even if US president Donald Trump's rapidly evolving tariff policies are complicating decision-making across monetary authorities globally. 'Eighty-eight per-cent of agents believe property prices are expensive or very expensive, the highest figure we've recorded. We have had 12 years of continuous price growth and the level of increases we have seen in recent years is just not sustainable,' said Mr O'Toole. 'In the medium to long term, the only way to ensure prices stabilise is to ramp up supply.' Still, the report also highlight what it called some 'encouraging developments'. 'There is growing demand for energy-efficient homes, underpinned by buyer awareness, green mortgage incentives, and a shift in investment priorities,' it said.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store