Ryanair shares price continues to fall in early trade

Passenger traffic rises 6% in September

Strikes have hit forward bookings but passenger traffic at Ryanair rose in September. Photograph: Francois Lenoir/Reuters
Strikes have hit forward bookings but passenger traffic at Ryanair rose in September. Photograph: Francois Lenoir/Reuters

Shares in Ryanair continued to fall on the Irish market, with the airline's stock declining by almost 1.8 per cent.

At 12.30pm, shares in the company were trading at €11.275 in Dublin, down 1.79 per cent from the opening price. Stock had earlier dipped by more than 3 per cent before clawing back some of its losses.

The decline came following a 12.5 per slide in the stock on Monday as it issued a profit warning and announced some “modest” cuts to its winter schedule. Full-year profit is now likely to be 12 per cent lower than expected, Ryanair said, as the cost of the strikes plus rising fuel costs hit home. The airline said falling consumer confidence and a fear of further strike action was also hitting forward bookings.

The airline said on Tuesday morning that passenger traffic continued to rise in September, despite ongoing strike action at the airline that led to flight cancellations. Ryanair was forced to cancel more than 400 flights in September amid two days of strikes by pilots and cabin crew and ongoing air traffic control shortages in the UK, Germany and France.

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The number of passengers carried on Ryanair flights last month rose 6 per cent to 12.6 million, with a 97 per cent load factor, while Lauda carried 500,000 passengers during the period.

"During the entire month of September, while we cancelled just over 400 flights, we completed over 68,000 scheduled flights with more than 80 per cent of these flights arriving on time," said Ryanair's Kenny Jacobs.

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien is an Irish Times business and technology journalist