Ryanair - Q3 2026

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, and welcome everyone to the Ryanair Holdings PLC Q3 FY 2026 Earnings Release. My name is Elliot, and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I'd now like to hand over to Michael O'Leary, Group CEO of Ryanair Holdings, to begin.

Michael, please go ahead when you're ready.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay. Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. You're all welcome to the Ryanair Q3 results call. I'm joined by all the members of the senior management team here in Dublin. Eddie Wilson and Jason are in Brussels, today, so they're joining from Brussels, and Neil Sorahan is in London, but they're all on the call. You'll have seen earlier this morning, so we released our Q3 results. Q3 profit after tax of EUR 115 million pre-exceptional, compared to strong prior year Q3 of EUR 149 million. The main difference is the absence of any supplier compensation in the current third quarter. We got some compensation from both Boeing on the aircraft delivery delays last year. The underlying business, however, is performing strongly. Traffic is up 6% to 47.5 million passengers.

Average fares were up EUR 1 from EUR 43 to EUR 44 over the quarter. Strong cost control continues with unit costs flat prior to the exceptional charge. 206 Gamechangers were in the fleet at the end of December. We take the last four Gamechanger deliveries will take place in February. All four aircraft have exited the shop in Seattle and will just be doing the last of the fit-outs. So Boeing are doing a terrific job in catching up on deliveries, which puts us in very good shape this year. We have the full fleet additions for the full summer schedule. That will incorporate three new bases, 106 new routes. They're all on sale for summer 2026.

I think the big news is we've now hedged 80% of fuel for next year, FY 2027, at just $67 a barrel. This year we're hedged at $76 a barrel, and that should deliver us about savings of about $500 million on oil, our oil bill in the next 12 months. Turning to the quarter, Q3 revenue rose 9% to EUR 3.21 billion. As I said, the scheduled revenue increased as traffic grew 6%, average, and 4% higher fares. We had a particularly strong October school midterm and then strong close in Christmas and New Year bookings. Operating costs, pre the exceptional charge, rose 6% to EUR 3.11 billion. That was flat on a per passenger basis and another impressive performance.

We've noted most of our competitors reporting numbers where they are unable to control their unit cost per passenger. With almost all the 8200 Gamechangers now delivered, other income dipped in Q3 due to the absence of delivery delay compensation in the quarter. And for Q4 FY 2026, fuel is hedged 84% at $77 a barrel, but we've locked in hedges for jet fuel for FY 2027. We're now 80% covered at $67 a barrel. I don't propose to go through most of the rest of the detail on the press release. We'll take it as read. I want to touch briefly on the baseless AGCM fine.

In late December, the Italian Competition Authority has already levied an utterly baseless fine of EUR 256 million against Ryanair, alleging that our direct distribution to consumers in Italy was somehow anti-competitive or anti-competitive or contrary to competition law. This ruling flies in the face of the precedent Milan Court of Appeal ruling in January 2024, which found, in our view correctly, that Ryanair's direct distribution model, and I quote, "Undoubtedly benefits consumers by leading to lower fares.

That it's economically justified in terms of containing operating costs and eliminating the costs associated with intermediation ticket sales, and it contributes to a direct channel of communication for any possible need for information and updates on flights." Both we and our Italian lawyers are, to quote them, "highly confident that this baseless ruling will be overturned on appeal." We expect the appeal will take one to two years, and it's for that reason, normally we provide 50% for these legal cases in our quarterly numbers. In these circumstances, we will be, given the strength of the legal advice within our rights, to not provide at all, but we think that's too optimistic, whereas in this case, we think providing 33% is a sensible and conservative approach. But we are very confident that that baseless fine will be overturned.

The definition, the market definitions, they are, they're, you know, untenable attempts to define or to claim that we are dominant in the Italian market with a 13% market share is utterly absurd and we believe will be overturned on appeal.

Turning to the outlook, the good news this morning is we've raised the full year traffic guidance from 207 million to 208 million. That is due to strong demand over the Christmas period, and we were able to add some extra flights over Christmas, New Year, on the earlier than expected Boeing delivery.

Unit costs have performed well, and we continue to expect only very modest FY 2026 unit cost inflation as our gamechanger deliveries, fuel hedging, and effective cost control helps to offset unjustified but increased ATC charges, higher enviro costs, and the roll-off of last year's delivery delay compensation. While Q4 won't benefit from Easter, fares are trending ahead of the prior year, and we now believe that our full year fares will exceed the previous +7% growth by maybe 1% or 2%. We think we're going to get to +8% or +9% for the full year. And therefore, at this stage, we're cautiously guiding full year profit after tax, pre-exceptional, in a range of EUR 2.13 billion-EUR 2.23 billion for the full year, up from the EUR 1.6 billion we recorded last year.

Obviously, the final FY 2026 outcome will remain exposed to adverse external developments in Q4, including any escalations of conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, macroeconomic shocks, such as that visited Davos last week, and any further impact from repeated European ATC strikes and mismanagement. I would want to touch briefly. I thought there were a number of positive developments coming out of Davos last week, not least, a renewed focus on the need for Europe in general and Ireland in particular, to focus on competitiveness. I thought there was a very good presentation last week on the BBC, where one of their correspondents said that the agenda for Europe for the next four or five years is going to be Draghi and drones.

They need to begin to focus on European competitiveness if we're to finance defense spending, and they clearly need to increase defense spending. There are a couple of things. Obviously, we would call for the early implementation of the Draghi Report. Ursula von der Leyen has done absolutely nothing on that issue for the last 18 months, except talk about it, and it is time now for urgent reform of Europe's failing air traffic control service and the immediate rollback of enviro taxes on short-haul air travel in Europe. It is indefensible that we tax European short-haul air travel while we exempt all the non-Europeans traveling to and from Europe.

If Europe is serious about competitiveness, we should be abolishing those enviro taxes on air travel ASAP, and von der Leyen should start focusing her commission not on more regulation of U.S. multinationals, not on the bullshit regulation of the EU261, listening to idiots in the European Parliament, but do something really important, and that is fix Europe's broken ATC services. That can be done with two simple measures. One, require that the ANSPs are fully staffed for the first wave of morning flights, and two, protect overflights during national strikes. And with that call for competitiveness both in Ireland and in Ireland, we, our government, could actually get on with scrapping the Dublin Airport cap. They promised to do so last January, as soon as possible. Thirteen months later, absolutely nothing done.

The good news is that Airlines for America have now filed a complaint with the American authorities, which we believe is likely to lead to some Aer Lingus flights being denied access to New York, or Micheál Martin being denied access to the White House on Paddy's Day in six weeks' time. It is a sad indictment of our incompetent government that it's going to take the American administration to embarrass them before they start passing legislation with their 20-seat majority.

With that, Neil, I'm going to hand you over and take us quickly through the MD&A, and then we'll open up for Q&A, please.

Neil Sorahan (CFO)

Okay, going back to slightly more mundane things again. Unit costs, as Michael said, performed very well, and we're now very comfortable with our modest unit cost inflation for the full year. We'll also have the benefit of those fuel hedges into next year, which delivers significant jet savings, albeit some of that will be offset by the rising environmental costs, which will go from about EUR 1.1 billion this year to somewhere over EUR 1.5 billion next year. Balance sheet, rock solid, and we're now in a very strong position to pay down the EUR 1.2 billion bond, which matures in May out of our own cash resources. That'll further differentiate ourselves from everyone else out there.

We've also been jumping on recent weakness in the dollar to increase our hedging on the MAX 10, which is now up at 40%-40% at EUR 1.24. Then I would highlight our total shareholder return over the past three years, which is coming in at just over 150%, putting us firmly in the upper quartile of the Euro STOXX 600 index. We're in a small club of three who actually have PAT in excess of 15%, investment grade ratings, net cash and TSR over 150%.

With that, Michael, I'll hand back to you, please.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay, thanks, Neil. And Eddie, is there anything you want to highlight in terms of current trading as we look into the summer of 2026? Eddie?

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

No, just to say that, you know, we continue, we continue to churn, and we reward those countries, regions, and airports that are lowering access costs, and we continue to migrate the growth and capacity from those that continue to put taxes up, you know? So that's generally the story in terms of where we're allocating capacity. Yep.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Yeah, we see a growing trend, by the way, of national governments abolishing environmental taxes. Sweden, for example, the home of Greta Thunberg and flight shaming, has abolished their aviation tax. Hungary's abolished the aviation tax. Slovakia has abolished theirs. Albania has abolished theirs. A number of the bigger regions in Italy are also pushing back and abolishing the municipal tax. So this trend is continuing while Europe sits there doing nothing about the... To abolish the stupid and illegal Dublin Airport cap before the end of February, certainly before our Prime Minister gets to the White House. And secondly, it's time to abolish ETS.

It is egregious that, you know, citizens flying to and from peripheral islands like Ireland, Cyprus, Malta, are being hit for these taxes when people flying long-haul flights, transatlantic flights to and from Ireland are completely exempt. The way forward, as called for by A4E, is actually to bring ETS into line with CORSIA, which would dramatically reduce environmental taxation and dramatically increase the competitiveness of European air travel. And with that, moderator, we'll open up to Q&A.

We're gonna limit everybody to two questions, please, and if you could start straight away, please.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you do change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your line is unmuted locally, and again, please limit yourself to two questions. First question comes from Jaime Rowbotham with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Jaime Rowbotham (European Airlines Analyst)

Morning, gents. One for Michael, one for Neil.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Good day.

Jaime Rowbotham (European Airlines Analyst)

Michael, morning. In the prerecorded Q&A, you were asked about short-haul industry capacity. You said very heavily constrained. As you look to summer 2026, is that a fair description of all markets, Michael, or does it vary quite a bit? Because from the U.K. to short and mid-haul beach destinations, it looks to us as though there could be well over 5% seat growth again, which doesn't really feel like a shortage. So any thoughts on that, please? Second one for Neil. Consensus has you on track to have about EUR 3.5 billion of net and gross cash by March 2027, because you'll be debt free by then. Scope for strong cash generation again in the year to March 2028, even with a step up in CapEx to the MAX 10.

So this being the case, how should we think about the potential for further returns to shareholders beyond the current EUR 750 million buyback, please? Thanks, guys.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay, Jamie. Thanks. I'll take the first one, Neil, and you do the second one. I'm always wary about these short-haul capacities. You know, what happens this time of the year when analysts are looking at tracking capacity, you have airlines over-declaring capacity for the summer, trying to secure slots. But, you know, the capacity don't, doesn't emerge. If we look at aircraft additions, we've taken 29 aircraft for this summer, so our capacity will grow 4%. Our traffic will grow from 208 million to 216 million passengers next year. We think Wizz have taken a few additional aircraft, but we're struggling to find out where they put them. But there is a degree of churn going on.

So, I mean, I would certainly look at markets like Albania, where we're putting, opening up a 4-aircraft base in Tirana this summer, Wizz about 12 aircraft in Albania, but they seem to be moving those aircraft out of Italy. So there is a high degree of churn. I would say we expect there to be some increase in seat capacity out of the U.K. into the leisure destinations. We're not sure how well the U.K. economy will perform this summer. But if you take it across the piece, where we're growing from 208 million to 216 million passengers, Jamie, there will be some markets, and I think certainly there'll be a fair war with Wizz in Tirana.

You know, we would expect to see strong fare growth in places like regional Spain, Vienna, Germany, where we've churned capacity out of there, and we are underweight capacity there. We're still seeing strong growth in Poland. We're seeing strong growth in regional Italy, where is going to grow very strongly this year, because they're abolishing the municipal tax. But that, you know, municipal tax will give us a fair boost in yields as well. So overall, across the beast, if you take the European short-haul is somewhere around 800 million seats, we're going to add about 10 million seats this year. We think Wizz might add 3 million or 4 million, easyJet, 1 million or 2 million on up, aircraft up gauging. Really, there's not that much capacity across the marketplace.

There is no doubt that the capacity is still heavily constrained, and we think that will lead towards higher pricing, particularly from our competitor airlines, who can't manage costs. Against that, we think there'll be some downward pressure on pricing because of there's so much fuel savings coming through the system this year. But overall, I would expect, and certainly we are finalizing our budgets at the moment, modest fare increases into, you know, low single digits this year, but meaningful cost savings, particularly coming from fuel. And I wouldn't get too worried about individual markets, because, yes, there will be some markets will have above GDP capacity growth, but that's more because we've churned. There will be other markets that will have considerably, that are in decline: Germany, Austria.

I mean, Vienna Airport last week themselves predict this year their traffic will grow from 33 million to under 30 million. There's no doubt that, you know, passengers traveling to and from Vienna this year will be paying meaningfully higher airfares, because of the failure of the Austrian government to abolish the tax. Neil, cash flows?

Neil Sorahan (CFO)

Yeah, Jamie, you're right. That EUR 750 million buyback will probably run out to the back end of the current calendar year. As of this morning, we're just under halfway through it, so fairly pleased with how the brokers are managing the pace of that. About right if we're going to run this out to the end of the year. So absent a dip in the share and things being accelerated, no changes there. Beyond that, you know, we've been fairly clear, you know, our capital allocation policies are retain a strong balance sheet. I'd like to see the cash trending up somewhere, you know, EUR 3.5 billion-EUR 4 billion. A big, strong war chest there, which enables us to jump on any opportunities that arise.

We'll be investing in the 300 MAX 10s. We'll continue to invest in opportunities where they come along, like the 30 spare engines that we saw from CFM last June, and we'll hopefully get the last of those engines in before the end of this month. We've engine shops coming at us. But taking all of that into account, and the strong free cash flow that we expect to have in the business, there'll still be opportunities to return more cash to shareholders. We've a 25% dividend payout. That will see the dividend increase next year, thanks to the higher profitability in the current year.

It's reasonable to assume that, you know, once we've done all of the other things I talked about, and, you know, we've got EUR 3.5 billion-EUR 4 billion in cash, that there'll be more buybacks or special dividends coming the shareholders' way.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Thanks, Neil. Thanks, Jamie.

Neil Sorahan (CFO)

Thanks.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

We now turn to Harry Gowers with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Harry Gowers (Analyst)

Hey, morning, Michael. Morning, Neil. First question, probably just for Neil. Anything you can say directionally on ex-fuel or total unit costs for March 2027 financial year yet? And then, second question, you know, I think fares at +4% in Q3 is a strong result, especially with still growing capacity, a decent amount in the quarter year-over-year. That compares to maybe some softness seen in some of your competitors on short haul over the last six to nine months. So I mean, maybe one for Michael, would you put that pricing outperformance down to versus the rest of the market? And are you surprised at all with how strong fares have actually been as the OTA tailwind has normalized? Thanks a lot.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay, Neal, you want to take the ex-fuel unit cost, and then I'll do the fares?

Neil Sorahan (CFO)

Yeah. Look, Harry, I'm not going to give you a huge guide on that because we are doing the budget at the moment. We've highlighted the savings coming through on the fuel line. I would expect that the cost advantage that we have over everyone else is going to widen, particularly as we pay down our final bond and we become effectively debt-free at a time when everyone else is taking on expensive leases and expensive financing in the business. We'll continue to have significant cost discipline over the course of next year. We've been locking in some very good airport deals, and they'll see us in good stead for the next few years.

We have all of the 210 Gamechangers, so that's good for the efficiency in the business. But I'm not going to get into detail on exactly where the ex-fuel costs or indeed the total costs will go next year, because the budget's still underway.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Thanks, Neil. And Harry, on the fares, again, if you remember, let's go back a year, we had the kind of an OTA boycott in FY 2025. Fares fell 7%, traffic was up 4%. And in that year, we saw a lot of our kind of competitors benefiting as the OTAs, at short notice, switched a lot of our kind of holiday traffic to our competitor airlines, particularly in the U.K., and they were reporting kind of strong growth and yields up. This year, we've seen that the reverse of that kind of restore itself. We've signed up OTA agreements with almost all the OTA agreements, with the exception of eDreams. We've seen very strong resurgence of those bookings coming back to us, so we have stronger bookings at better yields.

I think our competitors have then have been the opposite at the end of that trade, losing some of that traffic back to us as we had fixed the OTA distribution agreement. So, what do I put the 4% in the third quarter down to? We definitely had a strong October schools midterm break, and we had a very strong Christmas. Also, we'd taken delivery of 25 extra aircraft, the 25 new aircraft, but we were able to add extra Christmas extras that were timely and paid well. But really, this is the continuation of the reverse of the trade, the previous year. So the previous year, fares were down 7%. We had thought earlier on this year, we wouldn't get back all that 7%, then we thought we'd get back all the 7%.

Now we're saying today, actually, it's going to be a little bit better. It could be 8% or 9%, 1% or 2% ahead. So, but I think an awful lot of that was the reverse of that OTA trade from the previous year, which also calls into question the Italian competition ruling. Like, we now have direct access to all OTAs and most of the mom-and-pop travel agents directly into the Ryanair in inventory. All we ask them is that you don't inflate, and they're not allowed to inflate Ryanair's prices for fares or for ancillaries. And the one OTA, which is eDreams in Spain, who refused to sign up to that because they continue to try to overcharge consumers, either for fares or for ancillary services, were the one making the complaint to the Italian AGCM.

So it appears, you know, despite the Milan court ruling in February, the Italian competition authorities would like us to facilitate, you know, the one unlicensed OTA that wants to continue to overcharge consumers. Apparently, the Italian competition thinks we should facilitate that kind of anti-consumer behavior, which again, is one of the reasons why we're so strong on why that we think that would be overturned on appeal. But I think the strength of that is really the reverse. We're still benefiting and will through the entire this year, the reverse of that OTA boycott in the prior year, when fares went down 7%, it looks like we're recovering 8% or 9% of that. So over the two-year period, average fares are up 1 or 2 percentage points.

Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

We now turn to Savanthi Syth with Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Morning, Syth.

Savanthi Syth (Analyst)

Just regarding the CapEx plan for fiscal year 2027, the EUR 2 billion that you mentioned in the video calls, how much of that is related to the engine shops? I'm just wondering if kind of beyond the step-up related to PDPs, if, you know, if we see a bigger step up as you go into kind of fiscal year 2028 on the CapEx front. I know that's a little bit far out, but just kind of curious how that, you know, what's baked in and what might still be yet to come.

And then for my second question, I'm just kind of wondering, in terms of distribution, now that you've kind of gotten everything, you know, are you able to share, like, how much of your bookings come through OTAs versus kind of corporate platforms such as GDSs versus direct on the website?

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay, Syth, I'm going to ask Tracey McCann, our CFO, to deal with the engine shop CapEx. Let me deal with the OTA third-party bookings. Generally speaking, you know, and it's hard for us to track it all down because some third-party bookings still come through the website. We're hovering somewhere between 10% and 15% of our bookings are coming through these approved OTA distribution agreements and third parties. Very little comes through GDSs, although we do have GDS distribution agreements. Overall, I would think that the number hovers at the moment between kind of 10% and 15%. 85%-90% are people booking directly on the website.

Some of those direct bookings are being made by travel agents, and we've no issue with that, you know, as long as the customer is getting the actual Ryanair fare. So it's not an accurate number, but certainly, the volume of third-party bookings that we are coming through OTAs, and approved distribution agreements with mom-and-pop travel agents and OTAs, is somewhere between 10% and 15%.

Tracey, did you want to take on the engine shop CapEx?

Tracey McCann (CFO of Ryanair DAC)

Yeah. So for the CapEx figure for next year, there's very little of that is actually related to the engine shop. There may be some deposits on things like, tooling test cells, but the big spend in that actual CapEx for the engine shop will likely fall into 2028, 2029, when that shop becomes operational.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay. Thanks, Tracey. Thanks for having me. Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

We now turn to Alex Irving with Bernstein. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Alex, hi.

Alex Irving (Analyst)

Hi, good morning, gentlemen. Two for me, please. First of all--

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

[audio distortion]

Alex Irving (Analyst)

On the Lauda fleet, the Lauda A320s are getting quite old. Older—all seem to be about 18 or older, except for 5. How do you see that fleet evolving over the medium term? Do you want to keep that all A320 and to create some competitive tension between the two OEMs, or to have the scale economy of an all 737 group? If you do go mixed fleet, how many A320s would you need for that to be efficient? Second question, since it's topical, you've evidently concluded that the marginal cost of Starlink would be more than the marginal ancillary revenue. Is that because your flights are too short to drive willingness to pay? And how do you think about the ancillary revenue pool you can clearly expect if you were to offer in-flight Wi-Fi? Thank you.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay, thanks, Alex. I'll take those. I might have Eddie to come in on the Starlink thing, but you take the Lauda fleet, the leases that we have 26 or is it 27 A320 or 26 the leases run out to 2028, 2029. In an ideal world, I would like to replace those with new Airbus aircraft, but we're not in that ideal world at the moment. But you know, there could be a turn in the cycle or some unforeseen event between now and 2028, 2029. So we have another two and a half years to go. We could opt to extend those aircraft by another year or two, but they are getting close to end of life, and the maintenance is getting expensive on them.

So in an ideal world, I would love to replace them with say, I'd love to get an order done with Airbus for 50 Airbus aircraft, but they have no availability this side of 2031, 2032, for delivery, and the pricing at the moment is off the charts. Therefore, our fallback position will be, at the moment, maybe extend the Airbus leases by a year or two if it's cheap to do so, or replace them with, at that stage, we're into getting 50 MAX 10 deliveries from Boeing. We would replace them MAX 10 deliveries, but I would prefer to keep Lauda as an Airbus operator. I think it's useful to have some Airbus operation in the overall fleet generally.

But that's the kind of the fallback position is swap them out for MAX 10s, or put some of our older NGs in there and take out the older A320s. The marginal cost on the Starlink thing, and you know, I want to again we had a bumper week of free PR last week. I dispute, by the way, an awful lot of articles written over the weekend that Ryanair won hands down. I think we both got a significant win out of it. Musk and X got lots of free, cheap publicity by calling me a retarded twat. We certainly got lots of free publicity and a seat sale and a big bump in website visits. The press conference last week was covered.

There was 1,500 news articles covered across, I think, 59 different nations, many of whom had never heard of Ryanair before, but certainly have now, even if it's only Ryanair, the airline run by a retarded twat. It was good for PR. The fundamental issue with Starlink. Look, I think if you take my view, I think in five years' time, as the technology continuously improves, I think most airlines will be fitting, you know, a Wi-Fi access on board short-haul aircraft. We will certainly do so in a heartbeat when we don't have to put an aerial outside the fuselage of the aircraft that has a fuel penalty or a fuel drag.

I think the technology will improve in the next number of years, that you'll be able to put the aerial or the antennae, I don't know, in the front or the back hold or in the baggage hold or something. Anything that doesn't involve you drilling holes in an aircraft fuselage and putting one or two aerials on it that has a fuel drag penalty. We can argue over what the fuel drag penalty, although interestingly, Mr. Musk's Grok AI facility says that we're right and he's wrong. And therefore, well, you shouldn't always believe what AI tell you. I think it's coming, but would we pay EUR 200 million a year at the moment, which is the rougher cost of the installation and the fuel drag? The answer is no.

I was asked, would I be worried if he gave the Starlink system free to some of our competitors, easyJet, Wizz Air, and others, and the answer would be absolutely not. I have nothing but confidence that, 99.999% recurring of passengers when they're making a booking, will focus on what's the cheapest fare to XYZ. No, very few will focus on I wonder if they have free Wi-Fi on board, and that will determine, I'll pay a higher airfare for the free Wi-Fi. They won't. We would happily put it on board our aircraft now, if I thought there was some way of monetizing it, and that is getting passengers to pay EUR 1, EUR 2, EUR 3, or EUR 5 for access to free Wi-Fi.

To be fair, we're talking to Starlink, Amazon, and also to Vodafone. They all believe that passengers will happily, you know, 50% or 60% of passengers will pay for it. We think the number is closer to between 5%-10% of passengers, and therefore, it will simply add to costs without adding to revenues. But I've no doubt in my mind that a low fare will beat a free Wi-Fi on board every single time. But I think if the Wi-Fi technology improves over the next four or five years, we'll all be offering free Wi-Fi access. Customers will use it if it's free, but if they have to pay for it, they won't use it.

Eddie, anything you want to add to that, the Starlink or since you're leading the discussions with Amazon and Vodafone as well?

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

Yeah. I mean, and just to back up what you've said there, I think the technology will improve. I mean, like, when we were talking to some of the other providers, there was talk of trying to put into the aircraft, they didn't have the fuel drops. Vodafone haven't got their satellite system in place yet. Amazon were later to the game than [audio distortion]--providers, you've got the airline, and you've got the customers. We're not gonna increase them, the customers are going to pay for it. So we're gonna have to come up with if there is going to be some sort of drag on it, there's gonna have to be model that comes out and that is risk-free for Ryanair, the way-

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Eddie, sorry. Eddie, your line is breaking. Your line is breaking up there. Are you on a mobile or on a landline?

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

I'm taking the handset up.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Yeah, no, you keep breaking up. Sorry. All right, I think we've got the message. Yeah, no, you're for some reason breaking up. It's not coming through well.

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

I'll dial back in. I'll dial back in.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay, anyway. Okay, thanks. We've got the message. Right, we go on. Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

We now turn to Stephen Furlong with Davy. Your line is open.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Stephen, hi.

Stephen Furlong (Senior Equity Analyst)

Yeah. Hi, Michael. So two things, one for Neil, maybe, but the new Eurocontrol rates from 2026, maybe you could just talk about that and what effect that would have for Ryanair. And the second thing is just the whole area of engines and engine cost inflation. I mean, it just seems to be almost out of control. And how do you think, Michael, that's gonna play out in the industry going in the next couple of years or out to the end of the decade? Thank you.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay, Neil, you want to take Eurocontrol rates? Or you want Tracey to address?

Neil Sorahan (CFO)

They're starting to come through, and they won't be double digit this year. It looks more like kind of high single digit at this point in time is where they'll end up.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Some are reducing. I mean, the Slovakians have reduced ATC. The Polish PANSA have come out, I think, with about a 7% or 8%, is it? What?

Tracey McCann (CFO of Ryanair DAC)

12%.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

A 12% reduction in their rates. So yeah, there is finally a bit. But the big guys, the French, the Germans, the U.K., you know, still, who provide the worst service, are still fucking pricing up. And if there was ever, you know, a demonstration or if Europe wanted to demonstrate it was serious about competitiveness, they should start by fixing air traffic control, both the ATC service and the out-of-control fees. But I wouldn't hold my breath on Ursula von der Leyen doing anything on competitiveness except talking about, chatting about it. But I would expect, I think the guys are right, it's mid- to high-single digits this year. On engine costs, they are simply getting completely, I mean, they are completely out of control.

You know, but there is a massively constrained market. To be fair, the engine manufacturer has been losing money for 20 or 30 years. It almost bankrupted GE over the last 20 years. But post-COVID, you have enormous supply chain constraints. You have a huge surge in demand or supply for aircraft. Boeing and Airbus deliveries are backed out to 2020s, early 2030s. COMAC are not yet at the races in terms of serious volumes, but to the extent they tool up volumes, that will put another drag on certainly the supply of Airbus engines and Airbus avionics. So it is a very constrained marketplace. And we are seeing dramatic increases. Now, we're luckily in Ryanair, we're insulated. We have a power-by-the-hour contract that runs out to 2028, 2029.

We believe setting up our own workshops, our own in-house engine shops over that period of time is the way forward. But, you know, we are facing even when, you know, we're talking to GE and Safran at the moment about spare parts and the contract, but they are getting really, really difficult to deal with, even when you're as large as we are. And we believe the best way forward is to take that labor in-house. If you're getting third-party engine maintenance in the next 5-10 years, you are going to be absolutely screwed. So GE results last week, bumper margins, bumper profitability.

There's only two suppliers in the world on short-haul engines at the moment, that is, GE, Safran, and Pratt & Whitney, and Pratt & Whitney are struggling to repair the engines that they've already made. We badly need someone like Rolls-Royce to come back into that marketplace, but there's no sign of it yet. I think that would be an area by us. One of the reasons why we went out last year, for example, and bought 30 spare engines at, you know, where we got – they needed cash at, for some quarter end or something. We got a terrific deal on that.

So I think where we will, by setting up our own two in-house engine shops, and by being able to buy aggressively spare engines and spare parts at a time of distress for the manufacturer in distress, we will be able to have a very significant engine cost, engine maintenance cost advantage over all of our competitors who are third-party takers of third-party contract rate. And it will be another point of widening gaps. But I think one of the things that is going to drive, I mean, I come back to the fundamentals, you know. I look at the North American market last year, Southwest, which is the lowest fare airline in the U.S., its average fare was $115 last year. We in Europe, my average fare last year was EUR 45.

There is going to be upward pressure on costs for all airlines in Europe in the next four or five years. Airports, airport handling, certainly engines and certainly aircraft costs, like new Airbus, new Boeings are pricing up way over where we priced our MAX 10 order. But I think there is a--given the capacity constraints across the marketplace in Europe, particularly as consolidation continues to roll out, you have Lufthansa buying Alitalia, Air France, KLM, stepping up their ownership of SAS, TAP will be mopped up by somebody. There is going to be less and less short-haul capacity, and that short-haul capacity will price upwards. So I think that we're into, you know, plus or minus geopolitical- unexpected geopolitical events.

We're entering into a four- or five-year period, this side of 2030, where constrained seat capacity will enable airlines to price upwards, but they will need to price upwards because of ATC inflation, airport and handling, certainly hub airport and handling cost inflation and engine cost inflation going forward. But thankfully, in Ryanair, we will be much better insulated against that, that kind of inflation because we're taking it in-house ourselves, as we have done with our airframe maintenance over the last 20 years.

Neil, anything else you want to add on that?

Neil Sorahan (CFO)

No, I think that covers it well.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay. Next question, please. Thanks, Stephen.

Operator (participant)

I'll turn to Muneeba Kayani with Bank of America. Your line is open. Go ahead.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Hi, Muneeba.

Muneeba Kayani (Analyst)

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. So firstly, Michael, just wanted to go back on your comments on the fares. So your guidance for fiscal 2026, I think if I've done my math right, implies something like a 2%-3% fare increase in the fourth quarter. If you could talk about, like, is that what you're seeing in your current bookings for the fourth quarter, as well as kind of any signs on Easter? I know early days in terms of bookings is the first question. And then secondly, on the MAX 10 certification, I see your positive comments on Boeing. How confident are you on the summer, and if there's slippage, like, how do we think about the timing in terms of your deliveries for next year?

Like, when is the latest that you need to have clarity on this? Thank you.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay, thanks, Muneeba. Fares for the Q4—again, don't get too hung up on fares in the fourth quarter. You know, I think the strongest signal we can send today is we've raised the full year fare guidance from +7% to +8% or 9%. Bookings at the moment in the fourth quarter are strong. We're slightly ahead of where we were prior year. Average fares at the moment are modestly up, you know. What does modestly mean? Look, they're modestly up. But a lot depends, you know. Trump caused chaos at Davos last week. If there's peace in Ukraine next week, if, you know, there's too much geopolitical uncertainty out there at the moment to be. I think where people should take reasonable confidence from our full year fare guidance up 8%-9%.

The one thing we're not sure of is the first weekend of Easter is going to fall into the week before Easter. The first weekend falls into the 28th, 29th, and 30th of March. So you get a lot of school holiday traffic. That might. So we might get a little bit of an Easter bump at the back end of March, but if we do, it'll come out of April. So again, don't worry about it. I think take comfort from the fact that gradually over this year, we started off thinking we wouldn't get to recover last year's 7% decline. Now we're finishing up 1% or 2% ahead of last year's 7% decline. I think that's the better thing to focus on rather than worrying about the detail in Q4.

MAX 10s, again, I wanna, like, again, I wanna pay tribute here to Kelly Ortberg and Stephanie Pope. They are doing a terrific job in Boeing at the moment. They really are getting that fucking thing turned around. Stephanie Pope sits on top of the workshop. She worries about it. You can call her. She's there. She'll answer your question. And I can think. They came to us last year and said, "Look," they were originally supposed to deliver us the 29 delayed aircraft in the spring of 2026. And they said, "Would you—could you, if we, if we deliver them early, could you take them early?" We, we didn't want to. We said we'd take them just so we didn't run into any problems in the spring of 2026. And to be fair, they've delivered 25 aircraft before the end of December.

The last four aircraft, which were due in February, have all exited the shop in Seattle. We're just fitting out the interiors now, and they all look like they're gonna come about a week or 10 days earlier than their revised original delivery date. So they really are getting on top of this thing. We get a lot of very positive feedback. They now expect the MAX 7 certification to take place in probably Q2 of this year, MAX 10 in Q3. We've heard back, and again, kind of secondhand, both from EASA and from the FAA, they're really impressed with Boeing. You know, they don't get bullshitted by Kelly or Stephanie. They have questions, they get answered. There's a much more transparent relationship with the FAA.

Yeah, ENAC or, sorry, not ENAC, the European EASA have been equally complimentary. They're impressed with the MAX 10 and the certification work to date. EASA certainly tell us they don't see any reason why it won't be certified or everything is going... Now, that doesn't mean there won't be a slip between cup and lip. But certainly everything at the moment suggests that they're going to deliver the first MAX 10. I think the first delivery is due to WestJet in September of this year. I think the second customer is United before the end of the year, before December, and then I think we're about the third customer. Our first delivery is due in early February of 2027.

They're already making. And I think the most important signal that came out of Boeing is they started making the MAX 10s now before they're certified. So there's a reasonably high degree of confidence that it's going to get certified. And they really are. They. There's talk last week that Boeing are going to, you know, now begin production up in Everett, which would be the first time they've made a 737 outside of Renton. That takes monthly capacity up from 47 to 63. Everything is going in the right direction, and there's a really good management team sitting atop Boeing who are just getting on with the fucking job and delivering. And I would be very optimistic now.

To answer your question, you know, as long as certification doesn't slip into early 2027, if they get certification and delivery start at the back end of 2026, I think we're in reasonably good shape for our deliveries in--our first 15 deliveries are due in February, March, April, and May of 2027. At the moment, I would think the better risk is actually they might come a couple of weeks earlier than get delayed. But we're, you know, something else could go wrong, but I think there's a lot of confidence out there, certainly among the regulatory community, that the management team in Boeing have their act together, that they're not covering up, they're not fucking hiding.

And certainly, of the deliveries we've got this year, no defects, nothing carried forward, no fuselages are going out of Wichita up to Seattle. Really, I think you have to be very impressed by the job that the management team in Boeing are doing, and we're very supportive of the work they're doing, which is why we're taking these deliveries early. So the risk to us, Bonita, is that certification doesn't happen in Q2 or Q3, that certification slips into maybe Q1 of 2027, and at that stage, we might be running a bit late on our 15 deliveries. But, you know, we could take those deliveries up until April, May, or even June of 2027 and still have them in for the peak period, July, August, September.

Okay, next question, please.

Operator (participant)

We now turn to Conor Dwyer with Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Conor Dwyer (Analyst)

Hey, good morning, Michael. First question is for you, Michael. It's, you know, you're talking about it getting more difficult to deal with the engine manufacturers. Do you think it makes it more difficult as a result of that to do a deal on spare parts for your own maintenance houses? And does that kind of reduce some of the value in them? And then secondly, you know, you yourself pointed out some churn in certain markets, certainly looking at some of the data, that competitive overlaps are kind of rising with you and some of the other low-cost guys, and while there might be some fare wars locally, do you think there's much of a risk that that spills over into the rest of the market at all, into the summer? Thanks so much.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay. Eddie, I might get you to give an update on churn and the risk of crossover with competitors. Actually, look, no, I mean, at the moment, I think the engine manufacturers are becoming incredibly difficult to deal with, but thankfully, we have most of our deals already done. I mean, the critical difference at the moment is when we ordered the MAX 10s back at the end of COVID, you know, the deal was done with Boeing, and we priced it. Boeing did most of the negotiation with the engine manufacturer, so we priced all those engines. We get a certain number of spare engines for every number of aircraft deliveries we take.

We have found it a little bit more difficult than normal dealing with CFM and GE on the engine shop, but we're very close, I think, to signing up a multiyear spare parts agreement with CFM. I would expect to be in a position to announce something sizable there, and it's a multi-billion order by the end of our fiscal year. But you know, we are the biggest airline in the world. You know, these are very size of multi-billion.

Now, if you're not, you know, or you're trying to buy much smaller spares, or you're trying to negotiate third party—like, you know, already, for example, when we started the discussions around setting up our own engine shop, two or three years ago, we were talking to them about extending our existing power by the hour agreements in 2028 and 2029. I mean, the first quote came back was 3x our existing rate. And on the leads on the MAX aircraft, it was 5x. It was just taking a number, it was 5x our existing rate. And I don't think those numbers have softened any. Now, I think by setting up our own shops and being able to--

We have a huge spare parts inventory already, but buying more judiciously and buying spare engines, we will be able to meaningfully beat that kind of cost inflation going forward. But, you know, the engine manufacturer have lost money for 30 years, and now it's their turn to make money. And it's just another one of the challenges. The advantage we have is huge scale. We can, the ability to invest in engine shops, and the labor is not expensive. I mean, the spare parts, the spares is about 85% of the cost of re- you know, of repairing engines. Labor is reasonably cheap, but access to third-party engine shops is incredibly tight at the moment and therefore incredibly expensive. So we have very good relationship with GE, with Safran.

In fact, I was speaking with Olivier Andriès this morning in Safran. And we've good relationships with them, and we are one of their largest customers, so I think we're okay, but if you're smaller, you're a leasing company, or you're something else, you are going to get fried alive by these guys. You know, I was intrigued GE's numbers last year. I thought the number that jumped out at me was that GE's share price has risen by 500% from, I think it was January 2023 or January 2024, to January to date. You know, and I think Ryanair is performing well, but sadly we can't deliver that kind of share price appreciation. But, you know, these are cycles, and the best thing to do is to manage your way through the cycles.

Eddie, subject to your line being okay, can you give us your view on churn, and is it increasing the crossover with competitors this summer?

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

Yeah, hopefully I'll, the competitiveness of, Belgium and their phone line. Can you hear me there?

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Yeah. Yeah, you're perfect.

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

Can you, can you hear me?

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Yeah, yeah.

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

Yeah, good.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Yeah, loud and clear.

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

Yeah, I mean, like, if you look at what, like this summer, we're gonna grow by, you know, capacity, if you look in the context of about 5%, you know, it's very pointed. I mean, Italy continues to absorb capacity. You can see easyJet retreating on domestic connections, particularly into Rome, as they migrate traffic into Germany and the connections. Like, U.K. is a very competitive market, but, we again will be up at 9%-10% growth there because of our ability to negotiate deals at airports. We've just recently concluded a deal with MAG at Stansted, Manchester, and East Midlands, and that gives us cost certainty out to 2035, something that our competitors don't have.

So that, like, the U.K. will be a competitive market, but we'll be off, significantly and more established lower cost base. Poland is going to grow by, just over 20%. Albania, where you were last week, Michael, it seems to be able to absorb that capacity, right up against the competition down there. And you look on the other side of it, then in Spain, again, we continue to lock out places like Malaga and Alicante. Like most, Spanish airports, like Madrid, Barcelona, are close to being full now, including Palma, Malaga, and Alicante, and we've taken out close to, 3 million seats out of regional Spain over the last two and a half years because we're not getting a break on cost there.

The same happening in Dublin, Austria, which you touched on earlier, and then regional France, and to a lesser extent, in Germany. We put an extra 300,000 seats in last week, but we're not back to anywhere near pre-COVID levels because they decided to not increase the tax there, and they've got on the additional EUR 3. So the message is getting through, and you have that pointed increase in capacity where we're getting lower access costs. In Italy, for example, the latest region to deliver on the municipal tax is Emilia-Romagna in three of the smaller airports there. But, and, you know, the message has finally got through.

Look, if you want traffic, if you want to have access to, in particular, what Ryanair gives, is that connectivity to, you know, 31 other markets. And that's what those airports want, and they know that we're gonna be there for the long term, and we won't be flip-flopping on capacity as some of our competitors have. So we're gonna continue with that, and we've already started the churn for winter 2026. And we'll continue on that, and we'll see. But I think it's really important, I mean, what's happened in one of our most competitive markets in the U.K., that we've got that long-term deal now secured in London. That gives us that cost certainty out to 2035.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

I know you have Jason McGuinness there, Commercial Director there with you. Jason, anything you want to add? Anywhere there's, I mean, I don't, haven't noticed any particular increase in crossover. Are you seeing anything there? I mean, we're, I know we're--

Jason McGuinness (Commercial Director)

No.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Trying to get to Toronto. We have a big base, but there could be with us on very few routes. I mean, they seem to be serving Moldova and Afghanistan and, they seem to be desperately wherever we meet with these days, they seem to be trying to find routes that we don't serve, and they're welcome to those. The routes we serve, they're not able to compete with us.

Jason McGuinness (Commercial Director)

Yeah, I agree. I haven't seen. We haven't seen any increase in that kind of crossover. Like, we are growing, as we said we would, Central and Eastern Europe capacity very, very quickly. Like, it's going to grow by 15% this summer. Not to repeat it, but Poland, Albania, and Slovakia are all growing by double digits. We're putting 8 additional aircraft into Poland. Why? The airports are negotiating lower costs, and the market is absorbing capacity in Central and Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe incredibly well, and we are taking capacity away from some of our Western Europe markets. The likes of Dublin, which is flat this year because they're putting up charges, +10%. So overall, seeing no real increase in crossover, and Central and Eastern Europe is growing very, very well and absorbing the capacity very, very well.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Good. Okay. Thanks, Jason. Thanks, Conor. Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

We now turn to Dudley Shanley with Goodbody. Your line is open.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Dudley, hi.

Dudley Shanley (Head of Research and Head of Aviation & Travel Research)

Hi, Michael. Thanks. I've just one question left. I just wonder if you could talk to us about labor. I think you'll be starting to come towards the end of the labor agreements in the next few years. Just how-

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

We've lost you. Dudley, sorry, you got cut off there. We've lost you.

Dudley Shanley (Head of Research and Head of Aviation & Travel Research)

You just widened the gap.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay, sorry, you got cut off, so we didn't hear most of the question. But I have Darrell Hughes here, our Chief People Officer, so I'm just gonna hand it. Darrell, give us your current view of the world in terms of labor agreements there.

Darrell Hughes (Chief People Officer)

Yeah, thanks, Michael. So look, we're right in the thick of negotiations with the deals that are expiring this year. We've got a couple of pilot deals expiring and a few more on the cabin crew side that are up in March 2026. Really, the bulk are of the following year, in March 2027. We're in a fairly intensive period of negotiations. They're progressing reasonably well. I mean, they're obviously tough negotiations, but we are hopeful that we'll conclude those before the end of March.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

But, we'll conclude what by fully end of March?

Darrell Hughes (Chief People Officer)

There'll be long-term agreements.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

There are some we don't think we will conclude, is it?

Darrell Hughes (Chief People Officer)

Yeah, so some we may not.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Yeah.

Darrell Hughes (Chief People Officer)

Some we may not, and we may see some localized industrial action through the summer as a result. We've had a fairly benign period of industrial relations over the last couple of years, driven by the fact that we've had those long-term agreements in place. So we may end up not doing a deal somewhere and having to deal with that through the course of the summer, but operationally it'll be manageable. And so we'll just have to see what we can progress between now and the end of March.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Yeah, I mean, I should say one, that the German pilots have come up with some mad kind of a demand. So we said, "Look, lads, off you go." It wouldn't surprise me if we don't do a deal with the German pilots, but we're getting so small in Germany, frankly, if they want to go on strike, they'd be doing us a favor. Belgium, I see no reason to be doing labor deals in Belgium because the Belgian government just pay for inflation twice a year. Frankly, so, you know, we will continue to do where people are rational and we can do sensible deals, we do sensible deals, and where we can't, we will simply reduce capacity. We'll take strikes and off you go.

We're not going to lose too much sleep over it. But mostly at the moment, the focus is on. On most of our bigger deals can only come up for renewal in April 2027. And we are talking to some of those groups about doing deals earlier. Obviously, it would be in their interest to do deals earlier, but we're not under any great pressure to do deals. And I would certainly expect some strikes in Belgium or in Germany later this year. But like, frankly, we are reducing our capacity in Belgium.

Belgium, by the way, where we have 12 aircraft in Charleroi, the Belgians, as only they can, have decided that the way forward is to levy a EUR 10 travel tax on traffic in Belgium at a time when almost every other country in Europe is abolishing travel taxes. And then the local Charleroi City Council have come up with a wheeze, that they might add EUR 3 travel tax, but it's okay, it'll be paid by the airport, not by the airliner passenger. So, you know, with that kind of mentality, I suspect we will be cutting aircraft out of Charleroi later on this year, unless those tax increases are reversed. And again, there'd be even less pressure on us to do a deal with Belgian labor.

Now, I suspect they'll ultimately renege on these kind of mad taxes, but you never stop some stupid politician thinking, you know, you can just tax air travel and the passenger, or the traffic and the capacity won't disappear somewhere else, even despite that it raises such little tax. Thanks, Darrell. Next question, please. Thank you, Dudley.

Operator (participant)

We now turn to Jarrod Castle with UBS. Your line is open.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Jarrod, hi.

Jarrod Castle (Analyst)

Great. Morning, Michael, Neil, Eddie. Maybe just two topics to get your thoughts. One on kind of technology/changes and the other one on geopolitics, if I may. Just on technology, I mean, AI agentics, I mean, you spoke about OTAs being 10%-15% of your bookings. I mean, Michael, do you see this as a positive for Ryanair in terms of more traffic coming directly to you? And then kind of related, I guess, you know, just in changes in the industry, we're seeing more kind of premium seating from some low-cost airlines like Southwest. Is this something you'd ever consider doing a bit further out?

You can decide if that's one or two, but the other one I just wanted to ask you about. You don't have to answer it if you think I've already asked, but just Ukraine. I mean, do you think you've got enough capacity to add your 5 million seats within 12 months, just given how tight things are as you know, if we saw peace at the moment? Thanks.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay, I'll give you my view, and then I might Eddie, who's kind of closer on the technology side. Look, I mean, I think the OTA, like, they certainly the OTA-approved OTA deals has been terrific for us in the last 12 months. You know, we've been—but it doesn't take us away. We've been fighting for 20, 30 years to eliminate distribution costs. You know, we started off in this industry 30 years ago, when you paid travel agencies 10%, despite the fact they were trying to upsell to our more expensive competitors. And then the GDS scammers got another 10%. So you're paying 20% for distribution in an industry that had a less than 1% net margin, like it was mad. The internet came along, and all of a sudden we can distribute directly.

And that has been undoubtedly hugely beneficial for consumers. And the development—I mean, I think one of the reasons when we had the OTA boycott in November of 2024, you know, the OTAs pretty quickly realized actually that they have no business unless they have access to Ryanair's low fares, because we have the lowest fares in every market in Europe. But I think what has driven the OTA distribution agreements is the OTAs are terrified of AI. You know, historically, for the last 20 years, you know, your price comparison websites, which is, you know, they start off being honest, old price comparison websites, but then the technology, they dupe people into coming onto them, and then they flip them into higher airfares.

Now, we've gotten away from most of that, but only by fighting with them for the last 10 years. And again, it shows why the Italian competition ruling is so mad. But the OTAs and ourselves remain terrified, and, and I'd always said, you know, I am worried at the moment that sometime in the next 5 or 10, the technology, ChatGPT or some AI may dominate the marketplace and will suddenly turn around and say, "Well, we're referring." Lots of people now will not go to, certainly, under 20, under 30-year-olds, won't bother their ass to do the work, going to a price comparison website. They'll just go, "Alexa," or whatever it is, "What's the cheapest fare to?" Now, I think that's very good for Ryanair's business because we undoubtedly do have the cheapest fare.

But if they suddenly start, you know, getting control of 40%, 50%, 60% of Ryanair's in, distribution, they'll turn around and start trying to charge us for it. Now, my bet is that, you know, we will tell them to feck off, and that they'll need us more than we'll need them, because we have such price leadership in Europe. But we remain very wary all the time of people trying to insert themselves between us and our customer, and then trying to charge us or the customer for the service. And that's why we are so obsessed with investing in the app, the Ryanair app, the website, moving people onto the mobile boarding passes, et cetera. And it is to make sure. And it is really for protection of consumers, that nobody can insert themselves between us and the consumer and start charging for us or the consumer.

You look at the way Booking.com has transformed hotel distribution. You know, they don't own a stick of any hotel anywhere, and yet they're able to charge hotels 20% for distribution, and they have a market cap of EUR 150 billion. You know, so we need to make sure we avoid that in terms of the technology going forward. And so I think our direct distribution agreements with the OTAs and with the travel agents have been very, very beneficial to our consumers. All we require from them is that they agree they won't overcharge or inflate our airfares or our ancillaries to consumers, and so consumers get a better deal. They are free if they want to charge a fee for that service, and that's up to the consumer whether they pay that fee or not.

And so that has undoubtedly been very beneficial, but we, the OTAs, everybody needs to continue to be very vigilant that the next layer of technology, the AI, Alexa, isn't able to control huge volumes of our distribution and then turn around and start charging you for distribution. That's where I would fear, and I'll come back to Eddie on that. Just on the geopolitics, look, if Ukraine opens up, and I would remain pretty skeptical, I don't see any pressure on Putin to do a deal here. But if Ukraine opens up, Ryanair is the only airline that has aircraft based at 93 airports around Europe. And we can today, I'm doing, say, three flights a day from Dublin to Barcelona. We're doing three flights a day from Brussels, Charleroi to Rome.

We can take one of those flights at four weeks' notice, and instead of going to Barcelona, we'll pivot it to go to Kyiv and Lviv. So we have put a proposal with the Ukrainians that we can reopen 30 or 40 routes from cities all over Europe back into Ukraine, because we're the only airline that has aircraft based all over Europe, and we can do that within four-six weeks. Now, we still have a problem with the useless Ukrainian airports, who, despite the fact they've been sitting on their asses doing nothing for the last four years, we said we will put 5 million seats in there in year one, straight out of the blocks, at fares that would be EUR 19.99, EUR 24.99.

Then they come back with something dumb like, "Well, yeah, but you have to pay full published charges." Listen, lads, forget full published charges. You know, those days are over. If you want this rapid growth and rapid reconstruction, we want big discounts off those bullshit published charges, and we're still waiting for a response out of the useless Ukrainian airports. So our response would be, if it's published charges, we'll put 1 million seats back in in day one. Nobody else can put in those connections. Wizz are talking about putting in 5 million seats, but they don't have 5 million seats to put in there, and they certainly don't have 5 million seats anywhere else in Europe. They probably would agree to pay published charges, 'cause that's what Wizz agrees to do everywhere, which is why they can't make any money.

And, you know, that situation will evolve. So we can be very flexible very quickly in Ukraine, but I wouldn't hold my breath that there's going to be open sky - that the skies in Ukraine are going to reopen in 2026 or maybe even in 2027. And much as we hope that the current talks result in a peace, I think Putin is on the front foot. Trump has mishandled the entire... In my personal opinion, Trump has been historically wrong on Ukraine and on Russia, but we will wait to see what happens.

Eddie, do you want to come back since you're much more closer to the technology than me, and you're the point man with Amazon and OpenAI.

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

I hope you can hear me on this, on this line. Can you hear me there? Yeah.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Yeah, yeah. Keep going.

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

Yeah, yeah, I mean, just to build on what you say there, I mean, you've covered it off well in terms of, what the aggregators are trying to give themselves, how they're gonna differentiate themselves. I think they've got a lot to fear from that. And you're quite right in talking about our inventory, that if you've got the percentage of the market that we have in Europe, well, then we've got to be on those platforms. But I think what I would say is that we've been disappointed, as I think a lot of other, you know, taking soundings from other people in the industry, as to the applications that, there's a lot of hype out there about what it can actually do at the moment.

Okay, we can see some upside out in terms of customer service and dealing with dealing with customer queries. But, you know, you read about what's happening with Uber and that, where you try to do it through ChatGPT, and it's actually slower than being on the app. So that sort of leaves you with this sort of twin track approach of making yourself distinct with your own ecosystem, the digital boarding pass, making the app, I suppose, flow in the way that that generation, that younger generation, want to ask questions on flights or to, you know, to it won't be as sequential as you have through a traditional website.

So sort of approach of developing your own ecosystem, making it easier, keeping one eye to what's happening in the market with ChatGPT and others. And you know, quite frankly, we wouldn't pay on distribution, but we are disappointed by what we see. I mean, the focus on labs really at the moment is optimization, where we're getting real sort of cost savings. And on the revenue side, you know, where we're looking at machine learning, where we've been doing machine learning for many, many years and building on that. So we are looking on the distribution side, but nothing is sort of shaking the foundations just at the moment, and we'll continue with that sort of twin track approach of making ourselves much more distinct in our own ecosystem and also developing the plumbing.

You can, you can actually plug into any of those agents if they become the go-to place for people to make bookings into the future.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

It might just be useful, Eddie. How are relations with the approved OTAs? I mean, I know with the exception of eDreams, we have about 95% of the OTAs getting direct access to our inventory and the mom-and-pop travel agents as well. How are relations there? How's that kind of relationship building or developing?

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

It's very, very good. I mean, like, you know, there's always tweaking to be done with the labs teams in terms of, you know, the APIs that we have there. And, you know, we don't—you're always gonna be ironing out sort of, you know, customer issues, but that's not a big part of it. And, you know, like, it runs extremely fluidly, you know, like the technology sort of links there are robust, and they get on with it. And, you know, so we don't have a sort of a relationship with them, or we don't have to have a relationship with them on a day-to-day basis.

We installed the plumbing, and we don't wanna hear from you again, just send the bookings, you know? And it's working very well, you know, for customers seem to be happy enough that they're brought into our website.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

And certainly, you see a lot of them when the, when the OTAs themselves are, disclosing results, all talking up the relation or the, the direct access to the Ryanair distribution, good for their business, developing business, and it gives them access without the cost of screen scraping to Europe's lowest airfares.

Okay, next question. Thanks, Jarrod.

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

We now turn to Gerald Khoo with Liberum. Your line is open. Please, go ahead.

Juliusz Komorek (Chief Legal Officer)

Gerald, hi.

Gerald Khoo (Equity Research Analyst)

More than one, two, if I can. Firstly, on CapEx. Could you give an indication as to when CapEx on the MAX 10 peaks and at roughly what level? And secondly, on the Italian fine, can you confirm whether you have to pay that now or whether it only gets paid if all appeals are exhausted, please?

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay, I think thanks, Gerald. I'm gonna invite Tracey to address the CapEx MAX 10. I have Juliusz Komorek here, our CLO, maybe give you a clear briefing on the Italian AGCM appeals, pay, fine payment, et cetera. Tracey?

Tracey McCann (CFO of Ryanair DAC)

Yeah, so as opposed to CapEx, we've only given guidance for this year and next year. Beyond that, we will see a big step up in FY 2028, but we haven't given anything beyond that. Because, again, it'll be subject to deliveries, and it will be subject to when and the timing of the engine shop.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

I think one point I'd like to draw your attention to this morning, we've done really good work on the dollar hedging on that CapEx. You know, we've jumped on kind of dollar weakness in recent months. We've now hedged 40% of the total MAX 10 CapEx program at $1.24, which is remarkable, given that at the start of the year, we were looking at about $1.08 or $1.10 to the euro. So well done to the treasury team. Juliusz, do you want to come in on the AGCM fine, timing of the payment and the appeals?

Juliusz Komorek (Chief Legal Officer)

Thanks, Michael. Hi, Gerald. So we expect the appeals to last between one and three years, depending on whether we go through only one instance or two. And the payment most likely will take place in September of this year. If we win the appeal, the fine gets refunded to us with statutory interest.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay, and Juliusz, you wanna get any kind of thing you wanna add there in terms of the discussion with Italian lawyers on their, the likelihood of successful appeal or?

Juliusz Komorek (Chief Legal Officer)

Yeah, I mean, you've covered it quite well before, but I think two key points to take away from this is that we won the same case in the Court of Appeal of Milan in January of 2024. The competition investigation started in September of 2023, so just a few months after the AGCM started their investigation, a reputable specialized competition court delivered a ruling in the same case, and everyone expected at the time for the investigation to be dropped. It didn't get dropped for, I don't know, political reasons, perhaps, and it continued, and the authority was really desperate to try and invent a theory to justify the continued investigation and then ultimately to justify their fine. And that's what makes the decision ultimately so weak.

I mean, we have seen some bad decisions in our time, but this one is out there competing for a pole position. So on that basis, we are confident that we are going to do well on appeal. And then the other point I would just draw our attention to is that the authority concluded that we are dominant in Italy, but in order to do so, they really had to twist the market definition. So the case is ostensibly about travel agents selling Ryanair tickets, but for some reason, the authority excluded long-haul flights from the market definition, as if no one ever bought a long-haul ticket from a travel agent. Well, obviously, that doesn't make sense.

But then, even within the short-haul flights, they looked at flights shorter than six hours, but for some reason excluded certain countries, which are within the six hours of flying from Italy. So on that very first hurdle, we think the decision will ultimately fail on appeal.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

And I would add to that, I think, you know, the one message that came out of the, you know, the geopolitical events at Davos last week is, you know, Europe needs to get its act together in terms of competitiveness. Now, you know, you have useless von der Leyen, who's done nothing on the Draghi report for 18 months. It is time for Europe to stop all this regulatory bullshit. Like, it is a mystery to me that you can have the Italian competition authority ruling against the lowest fare airline in Europe, a year after, the Milan court said, "Ryanair's direct distribution model results in lower fares and undoubtedly benefits consumers." You know, Europe needs to stop this bullshit, stop.

You have the European Parliament out there, you know, a bunch of crazies trying to reinvent the wheel on EU261, you know, at a time when Europe needs to be competitive. So it is time to fix ATC, it is time to roll back enviro taxes on short-haul air travel. It is indefensible that we exempt the Americans and the Gulf States airlines and the Asian airlines from paying their fair share of enviro taxes, and the only people we tax are the short-haul flights in Europe by European citizens.

But, you know, trying to reform Brussels, and I think that may, maybe one of the big upsides of Trump and the mess in Davos last week, is you might finally change the whole dynamic in Brussels away from regulation and bullshit, in favor of a bit more competition and a bit more deregulation, and doing successfully what Europe does well. I mean, one of the great big, you know, Europe leads the way in terms of low-cost air travel anywhere in the world. We wipe the floor with the Americans. We have much lower airfares here in Europe, despite the fact that we pay ridiculous fees for ATC, compared to America, where ATC is free.

So we should be building on those kind of successes, roll back the bullshit environmental tax nonsense, and get on with making Europe a really competitive single market again, because if we're going to rapidly invest or spend money on defense, that's where it's going to come from. We need growth and we need competition. And everything in Europe is, you know, about killing growth and regulating fucking competition. So I remain ever hopeful that there'll be a sea change in Europe in the next 12 or 18 months, and we'll put an end to all this regulatory bullshit coming out of the Italian competition authority.

Next question, please. Thanks, Gerald.

Operator (participant)

Our final question comes from Andrew Lobbenberg with Barclays. Your line is open. Please, go ahead.

Andrew Lobbenberg (Analyst)

Oh, hey, Michael. Hi, guys. Just one quick question really. You said you wanted some Airbuses for Lauda. Do you see any opportunities out of the shenanigans at Spirit? Or would you run away from any GTF-powered Airbuses anyway?

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

No, Andrew, like, again, we would be opportunistic on Lauda. The problem with the aircraft, though, that would come out of Spirit, is they'd be coming from leasing companies. You know, and the last thing I would ever want to do is to take an aircraft from a leasing company. You know, the most overpaid, underworked, useless industry in the world. They're all having their... They are competing with each other to waste money and this week at having their the aircraft leasing the Robber Barons' Ball in Dublin all week. But we would again, like, I would take cheap aircraft wherever I could get them. We thankfully renegotiated the leases on the Lauda fleet before, as we came out of COVID, so we have very low-cost leases there.

And again, I think we just play it by ear. We could extend those leases by a year or two, but only if there's a kind of, you know, if the lease rates fall to compensate for what would be more expensive maintenance. But over the medium term, I would like to replace those aircraft with an order for 50 or 100 Airbus aircraft. But I don't see there being you know, a good deal on Airbus aircraft this side of the year, the mid-2030s, unless there's some significant unforeseen event. And so it's much more likely that we'll take some of our older NGs and replace out the Airbuses with NGs.

But for the moment, if we could find an Airbus alternative in 2028, 2029, that takes us through to the mid-2030s, that would be my kind of favored course of action. But if not, at least we know what our fallback position is, that is cheap MAX 10s coming out of Boeing, and we could spring out some Gamechangers or NGs into Lauda. Thanks, Andrew.

Any other questions?

Operator (participant)

We have no further questions. I'll hand back to you, Michael, for any final remarks.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

Okay. Folks, thank you very much. You know, I would take the results today, steady as she goes. We're clearly having a reasonable year. The full year results again look okay. As long as there's nothing untoward happens between now and the end of March. Although with Putin in Ukraine and Trump in the White House, that is a long period of time. You know, as we've demonstrated this morning, we continue to move on opportunities to hedge fuel, to hedge the CapEx dollars, and to use the balance sheet sensibly. And then in the meantime, we will use opportunities such as Mr. Musk generating huge amounts of free PR to drive bookings and seat sales, help us pay down the bond in May, when then we'll be debt free after that.

And then I would hope that by the time we get to the full year results, we'll be able to brief you on some successes on pay negotiations, and then we'll have better or more clarity on the Boeing MAX 10 certification and deliveries for the spring of 2027. Thank you very much for your support. We are not doing the usual roadshow on the Q3 results. Anybody who wants to come talk to us, Jamie Donovan here is head of IR. Neil is doing a few investor meetings in London today, and will do these in France and in Frankfurt.

Eddie Wilson (CEO of Ryanair DAC)

Frankfurt and Madrid.

Michael O'Leary (Group CEO)

In the next Frankfurt and Madrid, the next day or two. But if anybody wants to have a meeting, please call Jamie. You're more than welcome to come visit us here in Dublin, and in the meantime, we'll keep trying to execute sensibly on your behalf. Thanks very much, everybody. I hope to see you on the full year results roadshow in May. Cheerio. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, today's call is now concluded. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.