- Traffic up 13pc to 10.8m customers
- Load factor up 1 to 95pc
- Rolling annual traffic to Sept up 16pc to 113.2m customers
Michael O’Leary
Ryanair carried 10m passengers in September for the fourth month in succession and the seventh month in its history.
Load factor was up one point to an impressive 95pc. Annual passenger numbers for 2016 are on course for 117m, which may be enough exceed the entire Lufthansa group of Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian and the newly acquired Brussels Airlines, and make Ryanair Europe’s largest airline.
Ryanair became the seventh airline to join the 10m in one month club in July 2015, a club which includes Delta, Southwest, China Southern, United, American Airlines, China Eastern and the original Aeroflot, which reached 10m passengers in one month in July 1970 and put in many more 10m months before the collapse of the Soviet Union, reaching 100m passengers a year in 1976.
Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs said: “Ryanair’s September traffic grew by 13% to 10.8m customers, while our load factor jumped 1% point to 95%, on the back of lower fares and the continuing success of our “Always Getting Better” customer experience programme. As our recent guidance confirmed, we expect average fares to fall by between 10% to 12% in the 6 months to March 2017, so there’s never been a better time to book a low fare flight on Ryanair. All customers who wish to book their summer 2017 holidays should do so now on the Ryanair.com website or mobile app, where they can avail of the lowest fares in Europe.”
