That's not (really) it.

Ryanair makes little to no money from passengers, nowadays it's mainly from selling airplanes. They were still profitable during COVID without even carrying passengers at some point, only thanks to their flying school, which thanks to social dumping and the UE, allow them to charge 40k€ per wannabe pilot without even guaranteeing them a hire.

They booked 2000 737max, with their own special version during COVID+MCAS disaster, they paid it dirt cheap.

Then they operate them marginally, and now that the traffic has gone up again and the delay between buying and receiving a Max is about 8 years, they sell them back for a huge profit.

It's been known for ages in the industry.