Ryanair gives profits warning as fuel costs bite

Ryanair warned yesterday that it could slip into a quarterly loss at the end of this year for the first time since it floated in 1997 because of a combination of rising fuel prices, excess capacity and price-dumping by rival low-cost carriers.

The warning took the shine off a much better than expected 67 per cent jump in pre-tax profits to

The jump in first-quarter profits was driven by the late timing of Easter, which resulted in a surge in passengers flying to “sun” destinations, the early launch of new routes and the impact of baggage charging at Ryanair and fuel surcharging by its rivals.

This resulted in a 25 per cent increase in traffic, a 40 per cent rise in revenues to