Ryanair carried nearly 16 million passengers across more than 88,500 flights around Europe last month, latest traffic figures from the airline show.
The latest monthly figures also show Ryanair’s planes were virtually full, with its load factor – measuring how many seats were actually filled, rather than merely sold – at 95% in June.
The 15.9 million passengers carried across the Ryanair group – which also includes Malta Air, Lauda Europe and Polish carrier Buzz – compares to just 5.3 million in June of last year, when the airline industry was still heavily impacted by Covid travel restrictions.
Ryanair’s monthly passenger numbers have been steadily climbing since January.
Passenger traffic was damaged across the three months of December, January and February due to Covid/Omicron restrictions, while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – which began on February 24 – impacted Ryanair’s numbers in March.
Ryanair has said it expects to carry 15% more passengers this summer than it did over the same period in 2019, before the pandemic chaos hit.
In its current financial year, which runs to the end of next March, Ryanair expects to carry 165 million passengers across its European route network.
While the airline group has seen strike action – mainly among cabin crew aligned with smaller trade unions – across Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Belgium this summer, Ryanair has said that, so far, less than 1% of its flights have been affected.
It also said, this past weekend, that it expects “minimal – if any – disruption” to its July flight schedules to and from Spain, despite planned Spanish cabin crew strike action at different points later this month.
The various strike actions are over pay and general working conditions, but agreements are in place with the vast majority of the airline group’s staff across Europe, Ryanair has repeatedly stressed.
However, Ryanair said that Air Traffic Control (ATC) and airport staff shortages across Europe, “which are beyond Ryanair’s control” may cause some minor disruption and any passengers whose flights are disrupted by ATC staff shortages will be notified of their entitlements by email or SMS.
