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Ryanair (RYAAY) Hits 52-Week High: What's Driving the Stock?

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Shares of Ryanair Holdings plc (RYAAY - Free Report) scaled a 52-week high of $133.34 in the trading session on Dec 19, 2023, before closing a tad lower at $133.09.

The company’s shares have gained 78% year to date, significantly higher than 14.9% growth of the industry it belongs to.

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Let’s find out the factors supporting the uptick.

Passenger volume has been robust at Ryanair over the past few months owing to the rebound in air traffic from the pandemic lows. Ryanair’s second-quarter fiscal 2024 (ended Sep 30, 2023) revenues of $5,361.3 million beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $5,137.7 million. Revenues improved year over year, driven by upbeat passenger volumes.

An improvement in Ryanair’s traffic from the pandemic-led slump is encouraging. Traffic grew 11% to 105.4 million during the first half of fiscal 2024. Ryanair expects its traffic view for fiscal 2024 to be 183.5 million. On the back of the buoyant traffic scenario, RYAAY’s profit after tax grew 59% year over year during the first half of fiscal 2024. The load factor increased to 95% in the first half of fiscal 2024 from 92% in the year-ago reported quarter.

Meanwhile, Ryanair recently reported solid traffic numbers for November, driven by upbeat air-travel demand. The number of passengers ferried on RYAAY flights in September was 11.7 million, implying that 4% more passengers flew than a year ago. The load factor (percentage of seats filled by passengers) was high at 92% in November 2023. The reading was similar in the year-ago period. RYAAY operated more than 66,400 flights in November 2023.

Ryanair’s measures to expand its fleet to cater to the improvement in air-travel demand are encouraging. RYAAY’s total fleet included 536 aircraft as of Sep 30, 2023.

Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider

Ryanair currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks from the Zacks Transportation sector are Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation, operating as Wabtec Corporation (WAB - Free Report) and SkyWest, Inc. (SKYW - Free Report) . Each stock presently carries a Zacks Rank of 2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Wabtec has an expected earnings growth rate of 22.43% for the current year. WAB delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 7.11%, on average.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for WAB’s current-year earnings has improved 4.9% over the past 90 days. Shares of WAB have gained 26.1% year to date.

SkyWest's fleet-modernization efforts are commendable. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SKYW’s current-year earnings has improved 38.9% over the past 90 days. Shares of SKYW have surged 209.7% year to date.

SKYW delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 32.57%, on average.

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