Even though the summer has only just started, Ryanair has already recorded its busiest-ever month during June. With 19.3 million passengers having booked tickets for its flights, numbers are up by nearly 11% compared to last year.
For the Dublin-based low-cost airline, which is Europe’s biggest in terms of passenger numbers, it was the first time in its 40-year existence that more than 19 million passengers were transported in one single month. The former record dates from August 2023, when 18.9 million were recorded. The load factor, indicating the percentage of occupied seats on a plane, remained at 95%, just like one year ago. The numbers are based on flights throughout the entire region in which Ryanair is active, meaning Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
The record was broken despite the airline having to cancel multiple flights following staff shortages affecting air traffic control (ATC) centres across Europe. This has also caused severe delays to another number of flights. On 27June, for example, 30% of Ryanair’s 3,500 flights were delayed. A day later, apparent equipment failure at the main ATC hub for Europe, based in Maastricht in the Netherlands, caused another set of delays, for 25% of the airline’s morning departures. In the aftermath, Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s chief operations officer, asked European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen “to take action to urgently reform Europe’s shambolic ATC services”.
Over the last 12 months, the Ryanair group of airlines (including Buzz, Lauda Europe, Malta Air, and Ryanair UK) has now transported 188.8 million people. During the same period in 2022-2023, this number was down to 173.4 million or about 9% less. For the financial year ending in March 2025, the group expects to transport between 198 million and 200 million people.
That number could however change, depending on the delivery of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, currently suffering from delays. At the moment, Ryanair has around 20 Boeing planes less in its fleet than previously expected for the 2024 summer season.