Ryanair posted an 11 percent rise in net profit for the first half of the year, and iterated it’s still on track for solid full-year results despite recent flight cancellations.

Here are some of the key metrics:

• Net profit: 1.293 billion euros ($1.51 billion), vs 1.168 billion euros a year ago
• EPS: 1.07 euros ($1.25) vs 0.92 cents a year ago
• Revenue: 4.425 billion euros ($5.15 billion), vs 4.132 billion a year ago

Neil Sorahan, chief financial officer of Ryanair, told CNBC Tuesday that the results showed a “very solid performance” and underpinned the strength of its model.

The Irish airline has struggled in the last few months over issues with its pilots — leading to 20,000 flight cancellations. The firm has had to hire 900 extra pilots so far this year and admitted that in September it entered a “series of poor planning decisions” that led to pilot-shortages.

“We will have a little bit of cost inflation on the staffing front but still way lower than everybody else out in the market at this point in time and indeed we are very much on track to deliver our 200 million customers over the next seven years to March 2024,” Sorahan told CNBC.

The airline tried to reassure investors noting that most customers that saw their flights cancelled chose to re-accommodate with an alternative Ryanair flight and only two out of 87 pilot bases have rejected a new pay deal.

“I think the offer we have on the table for our people speaks for itself,” Sorahan told CNBC.

Ryanair foresees lower growth in the second half of the year and full-year traffic to drop from 131 million to 129 million customers. Nonetheless, the airline believes that it is on track to deliver a profit after tax in the range of 1.40 billion euros ($1.63 billion) to 1.45 billion euros ($1.69 billion) in its full fiscal year. This would be a record for the company’s annual profit, according to Reuters.

Source: cnbc
Ryanair says it's still on track for record profits despite flight cancellations