Ryanair Earnings Came Ahead of Estimates in Q2, Revenues Up Y/Y

Ryanair Holdings plc (RYAAY) reported second-quarter fiscal 2026 (ended Sept. 30, 2025) earnings of $3.76 per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.62 per share and improved on a year-over-year basis. Revenues of $6.40 billion marginally fell short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $6.41 billion but improved 15% year over year.

Traffic grew 2% year over year to 61.2 million passengers during the reported quarter. The load factor of 96% rose 1 percentage point on a year-over-year basis.

Ryanair Holdings PLC Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Ryanair Holdings PLC price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Ryanair Holdings PLC Quote

Average fares were up 7% year over year. As a result, RYAAY’s profit after tax (PAT) surged 20% year over year. Operating costs grew 4% year over year, owing to higher air traffic control (ATC) fares and environmental costs. This was partially offset by fuel hedge savings.

Ryanair now expects its fiscal 2026 traffic to grow by more than 3% to 207 million passengers (prior view: 206 million), owing to earlier than expected Boeing deliveries and solid demand during the first half of fiscal 2026. Unit costs performed well in the first half of fiscal 2026 and RYAAY anticipates only modest unit cost inflation during fiscal 2026 as B-8200 deliveries, fuel hedging and effective cost control help offset increased ATC charges, higher environmental costs and the roll-off of last year’s modest delivery delay compensation.

RYAAY is not providing any PAT guidance for fiscal 2026. 

Currently, RYAAY carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Q3 Performances of Other Transportation Companies

Delta Air Lines DAL reported third-quarter 2025 earnings (excluding 46 cents from non-recurring items) of $1.71 per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.52. Earnings increased 14% on a year-over-year basis due to low fuel costs.

Revenues in the September-end quarter were $16.67 billion, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $15.79 billion and increasing 6.4% on a year-over-year basis. Due to improving air-travel demand, adjusted operating revenues (excluding third-party refinery sales) increased 4.1% year over year to $15.2 billion. 

J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (JBHT) reported third-quarter 2025 earnings of $1.76 per share, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.47 and improved 18.1% year over year.

Total operating revenues of $3.05 billion surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.02 billion and were down 0.5% year over year. JBHT’s third-quarter revenue performance was hurt by a 1% and 4% decline in gross revenue per load in Intermodal (JBI) and Truckload (JBT), respectively, a decrease in load volume of 8% and 1% in Integrated Capacity Solutions (ICS) and Dedicated Contract Services (DCS), and 8% fewer stops in Final Mile Services (FMS). These items were partially offset by a 3 % improvement in DCS productivity, a 9% increase in revenue per load in ICS and 14% load growth in JBT. Total operating revenue, excluding fuel surcharge revenue, fell less than 1% year over year.

United Airlines Holdings, Inc. (UAL) reported mixed third-quarter 2025 results wherein the company’s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate, but revenues missed the same.

UAL's third-quarter 2025 adjusted earnings per share (EPS) (excluding 12 cents from non-recurring items) of $2.78 surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.64 but declined 16.5% on a year-over-year basis. The reported figure lies above the guided range of $2.25 and $2.75.

Operating revenues of $15.2 billion fell short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $15.3 billion but increased 2.6% year over year. Passenger revenues (which accounted for 90.7% of the top line) increased 1.9% year over year to $13.8 billion. UAL flights transported 48,382 passengers in the third quarter, up 6.2% year over year.

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