Ryanair has become the first scheduled airline in the world to carry more than 100m international passengers in a single year, after reporting that 101.4m chose the airline to travel in 2015.
This follows the official release of the carrier’s December 2015 passenger numbers, showing that traffic grew by 25% to 7.5m customers, representing a 12-month rolling annual traffic result of 101.4m (+17%) compared with the previous calendar year.
Ryanair spokesman Kenny Jacobs commented: “On the back of lower fares in December (following the terrorist events in Paris and Brussels), Ryanair’s monthly traffic grew by 25% to 7.5m customers, while our load factor jumped 3% points to 91%.
RYANAIR TRAFFIC: 2015 – 101M; 2014 – 86M; 2013 – 81M
“Our traffic growth over the past two years has been remarkable, rising by 50% over our December 2013 traffic figure of 5.0m. We are pleased that over 101m international customers chose to fly with Ryanair in 2015, as we became the first airline to reach this international traffic landmark.
“This is thanks to our load factor active/yield passive pricing, our expanding route network and the continuing success of our ‘Always Getting Better’ customer experience programme, which continues to deliver stronger than expected traffic and load factors, albeit at lower fares.”
The airline has a strong onboad F&B and retail buy-on-board offer.
This new record maintains Ryanair’s ranking as the busiest international scheduled airline in the world for the third year in a row.
IATA RANKS RYANAIR AS NUMBER ONE…
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) confirmed Ryanair was the world’s leading international scheduled airline back in June of last year (2014) and the year before (2013) in concurrent World Airline Transport Statistics reports.
This June will reveal the extent of Ryanair’s ‘leadership in 2015, although no other airline is likely to overtake it considering Ryanair’s 2014 total of 86.3m was 30m international passengers ahead of easyJet (56.4m) – the world’s second largest scheduled airline last year.
Ryanair cabin crew.
Ryanair was also almost 40m ahead of third-placed Lufthansa (48.2m). It also carried more customers than all the following in 2014: Emirates 47.2m; British Airways 35.3m; Air France 31.6m; Turkish Airlines 31m; KLM 27.7m; United Airlines 25.7m; and Delta Air Lines 24.2m.
This followed its crowning year in 2013 when Ryanair handled 81.3m international passengers. In that year it was almost 29m more than second-placed easyJet (52.7m) and 30m more than third-placed Lufthansa (50.7m).
In 2013, Ryanair also carried more international passengers than easyJet, Iberia and SAS combined (76m); British Airways, Air France and Alitalia combined (77m); and Lufthansa and Air Berlin combined (74m).
– See more at: http://www.trbusiness.com/regional-news/international/ryanair-is-first-airline-to-carry-100m-pax-a-year/99959#sthash.SMtdKS4m.dpuf