Traffic at Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline, rose 8 per cent in December when compared with the same period the year before.
The airline carried 13.6 million passengers, up from 12.5 million in December 2023. Load factor, a measure of how full aircraft are, rose 1 per cent year-on-year to 92 per cent.
The airline operated more than 77,380 flights during the month, which was up from 73,750 in November.
On a rolling 12-month basis to the end of December, traffic rose 8 per cent compared to the previous 12 months, reaching 197.2 million. Load factor was static at 94 per cent.
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It comes after disruption to flights over the Christmas period at several major British airports. Stansted, which is Ryanair’s main airport in the UK, suffered disruption because of foggy conditions.
Gatwick airport suffered more than four days of fog-related flight disruptions in the week between Christmas and the new year.
Despite rising passenger numbers airlines have seen average fares decline of late amid pressure on consumer spending. Ryanair said in November that its average air fare declined by about a tenth in 2024, which hit its profits. Higher interest rates and efforts to offset higher living costs among customers have meant airlines have been forced to drop prices.
Wizz Air, another budget airline, meanwhile, carried 5.1 million passengers in December, which was up 1.9 per cent year-on-year. Wizz Air’s rolling total for the year came to 62.7 million passengers, up 3.9 per cent on the previous year.
The Christmas period saw more pressure on airlines operating between Ireland and Britain following the closure of Holyhead ferry port due to damage caused by Storm Darragh.
The closure of the port and Stena Line’s Dublin-Holyhead ferry service meant approximately 100,000 people who were planning to use the route to travel to Ireland for Christmas had to make alternative arrangements.
While politicians urged airlines not to increase prices on the back of increased demand for plane tickets, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said it was “too late” in the weeks running up to Christmas. He said hikes in the cost of travelling to Dublin from London were due to the travel cap imposed at Dublin Airport and not the closure of the Holyhead ferry service.
Stena said that on the night of December 6th, during Storm Darragh, there were two incidents at the berth at Terminal 3 “resulting in part of the structure collapsing and rendering it unusable”.
Welsh secretary for transport Ken Skates appealed to airlines not to increase fares “astronomically” for people likely to be impacted by the closure of the Holyhead route. He said he was appealing to airlines “not to increase fares given the severity of the situation”.
“We believe that the figure is around 100,000 people who return to Ireland at Christmas time, so the number is significant and we’re doing our utmost to identify not just ferries but flights as well,” he said.
Dublin Airport asked planners before Christmas to boost its passenger limit by four million to 36 million in a bid to end a long-running row that is heading for the European courts. The news came as Ryanair calculated that the controversial cap had driven air fares between London and Dublin over Christmas to €600.
An Bord Pleanála barred the State’s biggest airport from handling more than 32 million passengers a year in 2007 as a condition of allowing it to build a second terminal.
State company DAA, the airport’s operator, asked local planning authority, Fingal County Council, to raise the airport’s passenger cap to 36 million in a move it flagged some months ago.
Separately, Ryanair ranked ninth in Europe last year in terms of cancelled flights, new figures show. The Irish airline cancelled 2,932 flights over the period, according to aviation analytics group Cirium. This was out of a total of more than 1 million flights.
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