Ryanair has said it expects its cost per passenger to 'modestly' increase by about €2 this year.
Then airline's Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorahan was speaking as the carrier reported first quarter profits of €663 million, compared to €170 million in the same period last year.
The airline said this was due to a strong Easter, an extra public holiday in the UK and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Sorahan told Breakfast Business the company’s fuel cost is likely to be €1 billion extra this year, which will see knock-on effects.
"We're indicating that our cost per passenger will be up modestly this year, by about €2 per head," he said.
"To put that in context, [it is] 40% to 50% lower than the competitors on the same cost lines in the business".
Boeing 'very unlucky recently'
A bridge collapse in the United States is also affecting the delivery of new planes.
The carrier took delivery of its first Boeing 737-8200 so-called 'gamechanger' aircraft in June 2021, out of an order of 210.
Mr Sorahan said they are hoping things will pick up.
"We'll hopefully have the last of the summer deliveries in later this week, or the start of next week, before the end of July," he said.
Boeing 737-8200 aircraft are seen in June 2021. Picture by: Ryanair"That'll be 124 of these gamechangers in the fleet, which are 16% more fuel efficient, 16% less Co2 and 40% quieter".
Mr Sorahan said the US plane-maker has "been very unlucky recently."
"Their fuselage has had a strike recently, and just when that was resolved - and we thought aircraft were going to start moving again - the only bridge in Montana, which connects Wichita to Seattle collapsed," he said.
"So, while they have a workaround on that, the bridge is still inoperative at the moment and it's going to take a bit of time to get that fixed.
"That's led to knock-on delays on our aircraft deliveries into the autumn, and potentially further beyond that.
"This morning we've pulled back our full-year traffic number marginally by about 1.5 million from 185 million passengers to 183.5 million passengers".
Temperatures and destinations
Mr Sorahan said he does not expect destination demand in Europe to change, amid soaring temperatures and wildfires in Greece.
"You're based in Dublin, I was there yesterday, it was bucketing down rain," he said.
"I think people will still make decisions to travel all across Europe.
"We fly to 36 different countries... at this point in time we see people to book right across [the continent] - I think that'll likely remain the case.
"The images that we're seeing at the moment looks stark, but we've had forest fires before.
"They tend to be isolated and are dealt with.
"But we're working with our customers, we're working with our people to accommodate them as best we can during the current issues in Rhodes," he added.
