- 13.8m passengers is a record for a European airline
- growth back to 9pc after four months of slowdown
Ryanair monthly passengers numbers grew 9pc in August, bringing to an end a slowdown since April of 6pc in May, 7pc in June, and 4pc in July. Ryanair enjoyed consistent growth figures of 10pc until a pilot rostering crisis in September of 2017. Ryanair passenger numbers 13.3m. Since then growth levels have fallen to just over half that level. Rolling annual passenger numbers to August were 133.6m.
Lauda traffic was 0.5m with a 92pc load factor.
Load factor (see chart) hit the 97pc level previously reached in July and in three summer months of 2017.
In a departure from previous monthly reports, Ryanair mentioned air traffic control staff shortages rather than singling out strike action: ATC staff shortages and one unnecessary pilot strike (10 Aug) caused almost 550 flight cancellations in August compared to just 27 cancellations in August 17.
Ryanair’s figure wil not be enough to finish ahead of Lufthansa as Europe’s most popular airline. Lufthansa reached a record for a European airport, 14.1m in July (the first European airline to hit 14m since the glory days of Aeroflot) and a further 14m in August. IAG finished in third place with 11.4m passengers in August, up 7.2pc. Air France/KLM were fourth. Fifth place EasyJet reported August passengers up 5.6pc to 8.6m with load factor up 0.1 points to 96.4pc.
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