Note on capacity at STN:
Brexit:
The recent UK vote to leave the European Union (“EU”) was both a surprise and a disappointment. Ryanair, as the UK’s largest airline, had campaigned actively for a “Remain” vote. We expect this result will lead to a considerable period of political and economic uncertainty in both the UK and the EU. This uncertainty will be damaging to economic growth and consumer confidence and we will respond as always with our load factor active/yield passive strategy. Until some clarity emerges over the next two years about the UK’s long term political and economic relationships with the EU, we will be unable to predict what effect it will have on our business and regulatory environment, but we have contingency plans in place for all eventualities.
In the near term we expect that Brexit uncertainty will lead to weaker sterling, slower growth in the UK and EU economies and downward pressure on fares until the end of 2017 at least. Over the longer term, if the UK is unable to negotiate access to the single market/open skies it may have implications for our 3 UK domestic routes and UK nationals on our share register but these risks are not material and will be manageable. There may also be some opportunities if our UK registered competitors are no longer permitted to operate intra EU routes, or must divest their majority ownership of EU registered airlines.
In the meantime, we will pivot our growth away from UK airports and focus more on growing at our EU airports over the next two years. This winter we will cut capacity and frequency on many London Stansted routes (although no routes will close) where we are already significantly ahead of our multiyear traffic growth targets.
Welcome to Ryanair!