The profitability of Ryanair depends on continual expansion and the sale and leaseback of aircraft; interesting times.
I'm not sure if you are correct on the details, however you are not the only one to make a suggestion that ryanairs profitibabilty, indeed their entire business model, only works in an expansionist business.
More than one analyst and bank has suggested that in a static, or retracting business the model just doesn't work.
Hmmmm.
As a slight thread drift, I find it interesting that after a decade or so of people like Gordon Brown, MOL, willie walsh and many many banks telling us that modern business needed a different approach and spouting loads of trite MBA ballcocks and telling us that we didn't understand these things, that all their ideas and actions are fast unravelling and reminding us that business concepts and fundamentals are no different to that which it always was.
T5 has shown BA that cheap-cheap is always more expensive in the long run, and I think MO'L is about to learn the same lesson.
However It's not good for the rest of us if hundreds of Ryanair pilots are dumped on the job market.