The Irish company explained that the increase in fuel costs, among other factors, contributed to the drop in profits, although its revenues increased by 17% between the two periods, to 2.7 billion euros.

The period under analysis refers to the months of October to December 2023.

Ryanair indicated that its passenger traffic and ticket bookings also recovered in the third quarter compared to the previous year, but was forced to lower fares after the European Commission (EC) ordered online travel agencies (OTA) to withdraw their flight offers from the airline.

In this context, Ryanair transported 41.4 million passengers between last October and December, up 7%, while the occupancy rate, which measures the percentage of seats occupied on each flight, dropped one point, to 92%.

Company leader Michael O'Leary welcomed the decision adopted late last year by the community executive on “piracy of OTA sites”, which he accused of adding “illegal extra costs” to tickets.

In its results report, Ryanair warned that this measure, which it described as “sudden but positive”, could have some impact on “profitability per passenger” during the rest of the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31.

According to O'Leary, the airline, Europe's leader in the low-cost sector, expects to make profits of between 1.85 and 1.95 billion euros for the entire year, slightly below forecasts made last November, when the range was between 1.85 and 2 billion of euros.

Its more conservative estimates would still allow Ryanair to achieve record profits and surpass the all-time high of 1.45 billion euros achieved in 2018.