Publications
Partners
Dublin - Ryanair raised its profit forecast for the second time in a month on Thursday after passenger numbers jumped 22% in November, a rise which it said was due in part to the improvements it made to its much-criticised customer service.
Since a pledge last year by outspoken CEO Michael O'Leary to stop "unnecessarily pissing people off," Ryanair has slashed penalty charges such as for excess baggage and not having a boarding pass, overhauled its web site, tripled its marketing budget and launched business class fares.
It attributed the stronger than expected initial winter performance to the newfound focus on customer service, a stronger forward booking strategy and substantial fare and unit cost advantages over other European airlines.
The Irish airline, which only last month raised its after-tax profit forecast for the year ending next March by almost 20% to €750m to €770m, said it now expected to make a profit of between €810m and €830m.
Number of seats
Analysts have on average been predicting a 40% rise in net profits this year to €732m.
Shares in Europe's largest low-cost carrier were 7.9% higher at €9.42 before lunch, up almost 60% in the past 12 months.
Ryanair said that despite increasing its seat capacity by 13% and opening a large number of new routes designed to appeal to business customers, it also increased its load factor, an indication of the number of seats sold as a percentage of capacity, by seven percentage points to 88%.
It added that its final full-year profit would still be heavily reliant on bookings and fare yields in the January-March quarter over which it said it "presently has very little visibility".
