Neil Glynn: Just two quick ones then. The first one, crew rostering, I mentioned a number of times. And I just wanted to check, I think you are up running at 5.8 at the moment versus 5.4 historically. Should that 5.8 continue into this summer, or is it likely to be higher? And then the second question, more big picture. Pre-COVID, the fourth quarter was generally profitable. And I appreciate this clearly a range of factors driving a heavy loss this year. But to what extent do you think the seasonality of your earnings has structurally changed? And if that’s the case, might it have any ramifications for how you deal with unregulated airport contracts, for example?
Michael O’Leary: Okay. Eddie, maybe you want to take…
Eddie Wilson: Yes. I mean the crew rostering isn’t – the crews per aircraft is just one of the inputs there. I mean where we have made very large inroads is on the support systems that we have here in terms of computerized systems that we have in the operations control center that helps us particularly on meltdown days, which manages hours properly and then spread them more evenly. So, the crewing ratio, like I mean, is there – there is no significant increase. We are keeping it at the same levels that we have, which would be – it would be in the range of 5.4 to 5.8. But it’s – I wouldn’t see it going beyond that. There is no need to hit anywhere near 6 or anything like that. But some of this is a function of the number of smaller bases that you have.
We are getting much better at managing hours, particularly in the peak. So, don’t see any sort of more upside that on crewing. But that will be traditionally higher than where we would have been. And if we didn’t have this ATC environment, French ATC strikes and that we would probably – we should be able to pull that back. But that’s some distance away.
Michael O’Leary: I think it’s something we are working towards. We are pushing hard with the European Commission. I guess the European Commission may want to protect overflight particularly overflights over France. It would dramatically transform both on-time performance and the ATC disruptions across Europe. And with European elections coming up this year, it’s very depressing and that Europe hasn’t moved on this. They are great for talking about the single market in order of underline depending what you are doing to protect the single market, and yet the French shutdown the single market for air travels 57 days last year, complaining about Macron’s pension reforms that didn’t even apply to them. So, we are continuing to campaign for that.
Seasonality, look, it’s a seasonal business, and I don’t think you are going to ever get away from that. We make – the vast majority of our profit in the first two quarters, the first half of our year, which is the June and September quarter. I don’t see any reason why the third quarter or fourth quarter shouldn’t be kind of breakeven or why they should be see – where they should be loss-making. But there are a number of issues there at the moment. And we are – one of the challenges is that we gear up for a lot of summer growth. And with most of that gear-up takes place at the end of Q3 and Q4. We have to start the recruitment of pilots and cabin crew, training of pilots and cabin crew, we tend to take a lot of the aircraft deliveries from Boeing in the first three months or four months of the year without having being able to deploy those aircraft or use those aircraft in service.
So, there is a disproportionate weighting of cost into that fourth quarter without if you like, the commensurate revenues. And that’s why – but Q1 and Q2 then tend to be very significantly profitable. I mean again, I would try not to get lost in the short-term or in the quarterly stuff. I think the key message here is, even with the – on this morning’s numbers, and we are back at where we are at the end of January, we are on track for it to make over €10 net profit per passenger for the first time since a number of years. I think that €10 net profit per passenger will be the kind of baseline going forward. I think there is a reasonable prospect plus or minus uncertainty in geopolitical events that, that number might move upwards from €10 towards €11, €12, or €13 over the next couple of years.
Particularly as we get more and more game change for MAX 10 aircraft into the system where we are carrying materially more passengers per flight, but burning significantly less oil. And I think what’s really – my key take-away from this year’s numbers is we are about to make €10 profit – net profit per passenger in a year when our oil bill went up 30%, 40%, we went from being hedged at $65 a barrel in FY ‘23 to $89 a barrel in FY ‘24 and yet our customers were willing to pay modestly higher airfares, better performance than ancillaries at a time when most of our competitors are still losing money or reporting reasonably modest profitability for the full year. So, this is a very impressive model. The costs are heavily controlled.
