Europe’s favorite, low cost airline Ryanair is expecting that its full year net profit will increase and go higher that its current guidance of from $788 to $826 million (620 million euros and 650 million euros) because of its growing number of passengers based on record forward bookings.
Ryanair’s ‘Always Getting Better’ initiative is continuously contributing to the success of the airline. The company’s Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said during the annual general meeting of Ryanair that the airline now estimated that it will have around 87 million passengers for the entire year which is a little bit higher than earlier forecast of $86 million. This is because of what the airline refers to as record forward bookings.
According to O’Leary, the management was not very confident about the new profit forecast saying that it’s highly dependent on the yields and that the company only has very little visibility at the current time.
However, he said that the improving customer experience has made it possible for the airline to increase its full year traffic forecast.
A year ago, the airline communicated with The Irish Times and pointed out that it has wrongly tagged Ryanair as a ‘no frills’ company, but it indeed was—no on-board catering, none leather seats and on online check-in. Not very long after the incident, Ryanair admitted that it has an image problem and that it was losing money.
Since then, the company has improved its customer service and offered better baggage rules, quick and easy online booking, automatically assigned seats, a business service and family-friendly tickets. The on-time jingle which was hated by all passengers has been silenced too. Also, it had initiated a kiss and make up with travel agents.
With the annual net profit forecast increased, the company said it pays to be nice. Ryanair is expected to report its half year’s earnings on the 3rd of November.