{"id":567573,"date":"2026-07-25T13:35:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T13:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/567573\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T13:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T13:35:14","slug":"ryanairs-e4bn-bet-on-surviving-the-next-airline-shake-out-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/567573\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryanair\u2019s \u20ac4bn bet on surviving the next airline shake-out \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Never mind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ryanair\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ryanair\">Ryanair\u2019s <\/a>short-term woes, and focus on the bigger picture: Europe\u2019s aviation industry is heading for another shake-out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">That was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/michael-oleary\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/michael-oleary\">Michael O\u2019Leary\u2019s<\/a> argument in Ryanair\u2019s latest earnings call with analysts. Ryanair profits sank 34 per cent to \u20ac538 million as lower fares and higher fuel costs squeezed margins. Price-sensitive passengers are booking later, with only about 40 per cent of September seats sold, prompting analysts to cut targets after Ryanair warned summer fares would be lower than expected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">However, O\u2019Leary\u2019s focus was more on competitors than the current quarter, saying many airlines face rising costs and higher fuel exposure, leaving them with a choice between raising fares or cutting capacity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Some rivals, he said, are \u201cheroically losing money\u201d, with the focus on perks such as free on-board wifi compared to people drowning on the Titanic \u201cstill playing violin\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ryanair is positioning itself differently. Ryanair repaid its final bond and is \u201cessentially\u201d debt-free, has completed about 90 per cent of its \u20ac750 million share buyback programme, and holds more than \u20ac2.8 billion in cash. O\u2019Leary plans on rebuilding gross cash to about \u20ac4 billion, back to pre-Covid levels, to protect it against \u201cunforeseen eventualities\u201d such as Covid or the Iran war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Rebuilding a \u20ac4 billion cash buffer rather than rushing into another buyback is a defensive strategy that echoes O\u2019Leary\u2019s argument: further turbulence may be ahead, with Ryanair seeking the financial firepower to outlast weaker rivals when it arrives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Never mind Ryanair\u2019s short-term woes, and focus on the bigger picture: Europe\u2019s aviation industry is heading for another&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,10726,1899],"class_list":["post-567573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-michael-oleary","tag-ryanair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}