Ryanair sticks to forecasts as rivals warn on profit
By Conor Humphries
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ryanair has no plans to cut its profit forecast for the current financial year despite warnings by rivals Air France-KLM and Lufthansa , Chief Executive Michael O'Leary told Reuters on Monday.
Ryanair shares climbed 2 percent to 6.79 euros (5.42 pounds)following the comments, which come two weeks before the airline is due to release quarterly financial results for the three months to the end of June.
"While many of our other competitors, Aer Lingus , Lufthansa, KLM have been out with profit warnings, we see no reason to change the range of our guidance for the coming year," O'Leary said in an interview.
Forward bookings are "running cumulatively 7 percentage points ahead on a rolling basis... into September, October,” he said, adding that this would equate to an increase in passenger numbers of between 4 and 5 million passengers for the full year despite no growth in capacity.
"An awful lot of it is we are just taking passengers off other competitors" following customer service improvements such as cuts to fees for carry on bags and assigned seating, he said.
Ryanair in May forecast that it would make a profit of between 580 million euros million and 620 million euros ($791.15-$845.71 million) in the year to March 2015.
Air France-KLM, Europe's second-largest traditional network carrier last week warned its 2014 profit could be as much as 12 percent lower than previously predicted, mainly due to overcapacity and resulting weak prices.
Lufthansa last month cut back its profit targets for the next two years, citing competition with low-cost rivals like Ryanair and easyJet as one of the factors.
(Reporting by Conor Humphries, editing by Louise Heavens)
