Passenger numbers rise for Ryanair despite conflict
Ryanair flew more passengers in January, but revealed it had to cancel more than 950 flights due to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The Dublin-based budget airline, which operates flights from Birmingham Airport, said it had 12.2 million customers last month, an increase of three per cent on the 11.8 million people it flew during the same month last year.
It ran more than 71,700 flights during January, but was forced to cancel flights as a result of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
The firm's load factor – an important measure for airlines of how well they are filling the seats on their planes – dipped from 91 per cent to 89 per cent year-on-year.
Ryanair, which is increasing flights from Birmingham, said the load factor reduced because of the removal of its flights from some "pirate" online travel agents in December.
Websites including Booking.com, Kiwi and Kayak decided to take Ryanair off their website, a decision which the airline previously said it "welcomed" because it complained the sites sold its flights without permission.
But it flagged that the move would impact upon ticket revenues as it is forced to slash fares to fill seats, leading it to cut its full-year profit outlook.
In the year to January passengers numbers are up 10 per cent to 165.3 million.
Meanwhile, rival low-cost airline Wizz Air revealed it flew 4.7 million passengers during January, a jump of 14.2 per cent year-on-year.
Its load factor dropped from 86 per cent to 82 per cent, which it said was a result of an increase in one-way traffic and as it also responded to conflict in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the airline's CO2 emissions soared by nearly a quarter year-on-year in January, outpacing the rise in passenger numbers.
But it said it continues to report the lowest CO2 emissions per passenger per kilometre among rival airlines, at about 52 grams on average over the past year, describing itself as Europe's "greenest" low-cost airline.
The firm previously announced that it will restart flights to Tel Aviv in Israel from the beginning of March, from locations including London, Rome, and Budapest.
Birmingham Airport handled 76,498 passengers last month.
It was up 12 per cent on January 2023 with 2,590 departing flights in the month.
It reported that 92 per cent of passengers got through security screening in 20 minutes or less.
