More slack and longer turn-rounds cost money as staff need paying for more hours. Ryanair has a policy of buying 90% of it preductied fuel at a fixed price when it can. For this year that price equates to $63/barrel. The current market price is $77/barrel which is what it will pay on the last 10% in uses. On many routes it will far cheaper only to fly in the summer. The report said they have reduced the target pax for the year by 2 million. That is 1.9 million that ryanair will not have to pay to fly. It will also make the load factor a lot better. The stock market has not liked the drop in load factor. Stronger enforcement of rules means that £9.99 fares must be the all in price. This makes it expensive to fill up excess capacity.
I am sure that 7 planes is only an average. We would need to look at the flying programme to see if is more on some days and less on others. It is also possbile that some get parked up at other bases and more get sold on. I am sure MOL would like to sell 20 planes each september. get 30 new ones each May and make a profit on each sale.