Ryanair continues to sell flights at bus price and still earns a lot of money. Your business starts after check-in

An any of April. Madrid-Milán for 15 euros. The passenger clicks “accept” without thinking. At five clicks – 10 kilos pole, seat selection, priority boarding -, The amount already exceeds 60. Uugh.

Ryanair is enough that arithmetic as simple as relentless to show off record benefits while their rivals scratch cents or directly lose money. Where is the magic? Why does its cost structure seem unbeatable?

Accounts against intuition

Ryanair’s last fiscal year closed with a benefit of almost 2,000 million and a solid growth over 2023:

• 1,920 million euros of net profit.
• Year -on -year growth of 34%.
• 13,440 million euros in income.
• 183.7 million transported passengers.
• Average occupation of 94% in its airplanes.

All according to Your annual report of 2024.

By 2025 it plans to go further, and it is already on the way to exceed 200 million travelers. In a sector where even Lufthansa (4%) or Air France-KLM (2%) barely reach margins of a digit, Ryanair moves comfortably in the environment of 14-15%net profitability, according to Capa analysis.

Let’s see why.

It does not give benefits to fly, but for everything else

Ryanair has been refining a mantra for years: disaggregate the trip to the last screw and collect for everything that happens before, during and after the seat of the plane.

There are several concepts there, but first of all, one stands out: that of the Auxiliary incomewhich reached 4.3 billion euros in 2024, one third of the billing, and 23.4 euros per passenger, according to their results report. What are they?

1. Luggage. From the cabin suitcase to billing. From 12 or 13 euros to 75 euros according to the season.
2. Seat and priority. Choose place, travel with the family or the group in contiguous seats or embark first, part of 3 or 4 euros and can reach 35 euros.
3. Sales on board. From snacks and drinks to raffles or Duty-Free.
4. Third Party Commissions. Hotels, rental cars, insurance … Everything is inserted in the purchase flow to capture margin without even their own inventory.
5. Subscriptions and gift cards. As choice fidelity programs.

We could put in the equation even to institutional advertising. A reef. Cantabria is paying 18 million euros in four years for Ryanair to “promote” the brand on its website and maintain routes, he revealed eldiario.es.

This proposal touches the Freemium And in fact nine years ago The CEO said That “within five to ten years, prices will be free, in that case the flights will be full”, referring to the possibility of monetizing both the aforementioned roads, and with the distribution of airport income. It is not something that has happened or seems that it will happen, at least within the period.

The cost that fits in a backpack

Ryanair presumes that Fly costs 34 euros per passengernot counting the fuel. The figure comes from an internal slide projected in Milan and exhibited by The Flight Club. If we crumble it …

• Staff: 8 euros. It lowers it with multipurpose crews and flexible contracts.
• Airport and Handling: 8 euros. It resorts to local subsidies, bases in secondary (cheaper) airports and the payment of minimum rates
• Property and maintenance. 8 euros. Its homogeneous fleet of Boeing 737 that lowers with mass orders that derive in large discounts.
• Routes and navigation. 6 euros. It resorts to point flights, without connections that make the final price more expensive.
• Others. 4 euros. Little for a minimal business structure and the use of free or low cost viral marketing.

To compare: Easyjet, your rival Low Costhas a cost of more than double, 79 euros per person. Wizz Air leaves it at 52 euros. Always without counting the fuel. The traditional ones, such as Lufthansa, can go above 160 euros. That is what we add the increasing number of people who fly with Ryanair.

There are four key levers that are worth highlighting:

1. Unique and dense fleet. Those mentioned 737 (has more than half a thousand of thema good part of those of 197 places) consume 16% less fuel per seat and add 4% capacity. Simple mathematics.
2. Express rotation. Since an airplane touches wheels until it takes again as soon as half an hour passes. That allows each plane to fly more hours and distribute amortization on more flights and more seats.
3. Digital approach. He Check-in face -to -face costs 55 euros. A deterrence for most, a tariff for the accommodation in the analog. The result is that 99% do it online and Ryanair barely needs counter. AND wants to go further.
4. Low profile airports. Stansted instead of Heathrow, Beauvais instead of Charles de Gaulle. Rates can be up to 80% cheaper and times direct and indirect public aid in order to preserve routes can compensate.

The undercover subsidies, by the way, are overcoming borders and Morocco is following that wake.

Spain, perfect laboratory

The relationship of Spain with Ryanair is unique. This airline It controls almost 20% of flights that land or take off in Spain. The following in the ranking, at a certain distance, are also Low Cost.

Besides, Spain is Ryanair’s second marketonly behind Italy and above the United Kingdom, with 2,416 million euros in revenue last year.

However, the Fine of 179 million euros to airlines Low Cost imposed by the Ministry of Consumer in November also Ryanair splashed fully, who was charged 108 of those millionsreceivable hand luggage.

O’Leary, the CEO, in its unbridled line, He called “Crazy Communist” Minister Pablo Bustinduy at a press conference threatened to cut routes in protest of what he considered an “illegal” fine.

These types of orders are not isolated, but a usual play: it is enough to pronounce that threat to, very often, get the authorities to give up, although sometimes it does not happen and in fact Spain is getting tired of them. Is what has happened for example In Valladolid and Jerez this year. Some airports depend on their traffic in 60%, Ryanair knows it and plays with it in his favor to improve his profitability.

The cracks

In that armor Low Cost that Ryanair drives, there is some fissure that is allowed to glimpse. For example, green taxes in the EU, their territory of action. France has doubled its air rate, something that will irremediably upload costs for airlines.

CEO’s response was expected: threatening to cut flights if the fiscal pressure grows. That this play is a pattern says something implicit about Ryanair: Its existence is practically necessary for avid tourist traffic regions She already bends more easily than to the great, des, with less negotiating force.

Their labor costs have also been growing since in 2018 its template began to union. That was a pulse that ended up winning the worker after The cancellation of 26,000 flights in a yearsomething that was not only a short economic stick, but also a long reputational risk.

In addition, a proposal like Ryanair, based on volume, needs the maximum possible amount of flights. The European sky already leds comfortably with 3,044 daily flightsand the problem is that this sky has not much more margin.

Air space (counting on Slots and controllers) is 95% of its capacity in summer peaks. Without reforms that do not depend on Ryanair, it can hardly grow much more in number of flights. And those who add will have a greater risk of extra delays and costs.

Ryanair’s perfect paradox

Ryanair has made the flight an entrance product – a bait – and the crossing in a supermarket full of extras with its own price label. The mixture “34 euros of passenger cost and 23 euros of auxiliary income” is a combination that no rival has yet matched.

Now, That perfect balance depends on the suitcase or the chosen seat are still something optional. Because Brussels debate whether to force a free cabin lump – something that Spain has already tried to anticipate with its fine But it is not completely clear– And it will be one of the topics to be addressed in 2026.

If cabin luggage becomes basic right, Ryanair’s margin will narrow and force two possible reactions:

1. Upload prices (and risk a drop in demand).
2. Invent new monetizable extras, from advertising during the flight to more creative subscriptions (such as The one you already have to choose a seat).

Both scenarios would endanger the “bait effect” that today is able to get people buying flights almost impulsively. Of course, if there is an imaginative airline to maximize the benefit, that is Ryanair, which He did not hesitate to load the reclining seats in 2004 in order to maximize the space.

The environmental invoice in the form of the Querosene tax That awaits its moment for 2028 is another risk. The 15 or 20 euros base ticket is very sensitive to each cent added. Ryanair presumes to be the most “green” for dividing emissions among many seats, but if a fixed lien arrives, that argument will help little. At the moment it seems feasible that This rate is delayed until 2035.

We must admit that Climate policy does have some paradoxical, and that Ryanair has at least one point of reason there: It is a policy that rewards full and efficient airplanes – its specialty – but penalizes the ultrabarate ticket, which is what makes that high occupation viable.

The aforementioned high occupation rate of the European sky, touching its physical limit, especially if the war in Ukraine or The scarcity of controllers persistsIt is another risk for your model. Add more flights will mean punches and kicks to scratch another Slot to the rest, and assume delays that make crews and fuel.

However, they are a few clouds for which it is still a sunny day for Ryanair. Especially if the consumer is still willing to peck in the extra window and stop carrying the scarf pants to pay to raise his suitcase. Until now, His Achilles heel is not being the demand, but the regulation that decides what is allowed to collect separately and how many planes fit in the sky.

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