Budget Airline Ryanair’s outspoken CEO, Michael O’Leary has said that his company will continue to offer European consumers better value for money, “Just like Aldi, Lidl, Ikea and McDonalds are doing in their respective industries”, despite posting it’s first full year loss in 20 years.
Ryanair had written down the fall in the value of it’s stake in state owned carrier Aer Lingus by €225million, along with accelerated depreciation on aircraft disposals of €51.6million, revealing a net loss for the year 2008/2009 of €169million.
Without the write downs Ryanair had shown a full year net profit of €105million.
Ryanair has managed to increase passenger numbers by 15% during the last year while rival carriers have struggled, British Airways for instance now insisting that they face a ‘fight for survival’, as O’Leary predicts further growth for this year by cutting fare prices.
As cash rich Ryanair sees it’s €2.3billion cash pile growing, O’Leary remains bullish over the prospects of his business over the competition in the coming year. He says:
“All of our major competitors have reported material reductions in short-haul capacity and traffic, Ryanair will continue to lower fares to stimulate traffic growth, maintain high load factors and win more short-haul traffic from our high fare competitors.”
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