Irish no-frills airline Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, yesterday said that its first-quarter profit dropped by more than one-fifth on higher fuel costs and salaries for pilots.
Profit after taxes slid 22 percent to 309.2 million euros (US$362.33 million) in the three months to the end of last month compared with the same period last year.
The earnings update came as Ryanair faces strikes this week by some pilots and cabin crew, despite group efforts over the past few months to improve pay and conditions.
Referring to its first quarter, Ryanair said that “staff costs increased by 34 percent, primarily due to pilot 20 percent pay increases, 9 percent more flight hours and a 3 percent general pay increase for our non-flight staff.”
The Dublin-based carrier also said that oil prices had “risen substantially from US$50 per barrel at this time last year to almost US$80 per barrel.”
Some of Ryanair’s Ireland-based pilots were to carry out a third one-day strike today, resulting in the cancelation of 16 flights.
The airline has canceled 600 flights in Europe that were due tomorrow and Thursday owing to strikes by cabin crews in Spain, Portugal and Belgium.
“Despite signing pilot and cabin crew union recognition agreements in our major markets — the UK and Italy, and a recent agreement in Germany... progress has been slower in smaller markets,” Ryanair said.
“While we continue to actively engage with pilot and cabin crew unions across Europe, we expect further strikes over the peak summer period, as we are not prepared to concede to unreasonable demands that will compromise either our low fares or our highly efficient model,” it said.
Ryanair added that its passenger traffic grew 7 percent to 37.6 million in its first quarter of the year, while revenue increased 9 percent to almost 2.1 billion euros.
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