LONDON – Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair announced it handled 15.4 million passengers last month, which is a whopping 756% increase compared to the same period last year.

Just 1.8m guests were handled in May 2021, with a load factor of 79% at the time. This has now increased by 13 percentage points to 92%.

The Irish carrier operated 88,400 flights in May, and from the following prior months, it is clear the airline is seeing a distinct recovery in traffic:

Looking towards the rolling annual figures, this has increased by 310% to 123.9 million passengers, from 30.2m in May last year.

Load factors across the rolling annual figures have increased by 12 percentage points to 84%, which represents healthy and steady growth going forward.

A Positive Two Months for Ryanair…

It has been a positive couple of months for Ryanair, as it gears up growth ahead of what will be a busy Summer 2022 season for the airline.

Two months ago, the airline announced an expansion in Italy, through new aircraft and routes in Pisa and Venice respectively.

As the airline then tried to increase its recruitment capacity, Ryanair launched its major pilot training program in France, where they aim to produce up to 500 cadet pilots in the next four years.

Another base investment was then made at Krakow, representing around $800m to include 10 new routes to and from the Polish destination, bringing the total to 83 routes.

Then, around two weeks ago, the airline inaugurated its first-ever aircraft-heavy maintenance facility in Shannon Airport, especially as the airline continues to receive more aircraft.

Finally, the airline then announced a reduction in its losses by 660 million EUR, whilst at the time their passenger numbers increased by 253%.

Today’s news shows that the increases continue to follow.

Overall…

It remains clear that Ryanair is definitely on its way back to some form of normalcy post-COVID, and is doing everything it can in order to make this a continued reality.

Looking ahead, the airline will no doubt feel the pressures being seen in the UK and the rest of Europe as over-capacity becomes an issue, with thousands of passengers being stranded due to cancellations.

Even so, it does appear that as the number of flights increases at the carrier, the passengers will follow with that and that the damage therefore could be minimized as a result.

Either way, Ryanair is most definitely set up for a Summer of Success, and this is the sort of momentum needed to take itself into the next period of the year, which will be Winter 2022/23 season.