In line with expectations, I'd say.
If you expected poor performance, yes it's in line with expectations.
-4p is a big decrease of their LF, which is very problematic for an airline that drives its revenue from the LF rather than from the yield.
Ok, last year April LF was high because Easter was in April.
The problem was actually more March results. How could they increase their LF of only +1% in March08 vs. 07 whereas Easter was in March in 2008???
If we consider March and April, therefore without easter effect, it's a net decrease of -2p of LF!
This is huge!
It clearly shows that Ryanair new bases are performing very badly. BOH looks a nightmare, BHD a stupid choice just against Aer Lingus, BRE is a disaster, VLC and ALC are difficult, without talking about MAD and MRS which apparently are still not breack-even.
Poor new bases + lower LF + higher fuel cost not hedged = bad performances
For me, it shows Ryanair top managers inability to enter in an optimisation model. When everybody were predicting a fuel barrel above 100$, how could they be 100% not hedged???
When everybody were saying german and spanish markets were saturated, how could they choose to launch bases at MAD, REU, ALC, VLC and BRE???
It's easy to tell the airports to reduce their costs because Ryanair is in a difficult position. That's unbelievable!!!
If they are in bad position, this is MAINLY because of theirselves...
Finally, only Ryanair people could think that if last year LF are of 83% and this year of 79%, this is a decrease of 4%
Of course, this is a decrease of 4p. This is unbelievable to see that on a public website! This is basic mathematic!!!
How could anybody at Ryanair noticed that???
I checked easyJet website and hopefully for them they are stated that correctly:
Load factor 90,2%
86,8% 3,4 pp