Ryanair traffic up 30% in January

Ryanair’s impressive winter performance continued last month with the airline yesterday reporting a 30% year-on-year rise in passenger numbers for January.

In all, Ryanair carried 5.98m people on its routes in the first month of the year, with load factor — measuring the amount of filled seats, rather than just sold ones —rising by 12% on the same month last year to 83%.

This followed on from a 20% annualised passenger increase in December (to just over 6m passengers) and an 88% load factor.

Ryanair’s marketing chief, Kenny Jacobs, said the strong recent performances have been down to a lowering in fares and its ‘Always Getting Better’ customer service improvements programme, “which delivered stronger forward bookings and better-than-expected load factors across our significantly expanded winter schedule”.

“While the absolute number of passengers carried in January is impressive, even more so given the growth rate being achieved, this success is set against declining fare levels which Ryanair believes will fall by between 6%-8% in the final quarter of the company’s fiscal year,” said David Holohan, head of research at Merrion Stockbrokers.

Mark Simpson, of Goodbody Stockbrokers, suggested that Ryanair could upwardly revise yield guidance in the summer and will use its pricing power to take market share from competitors.

He added that the “fare conscious business market” will be the big battleground in European air travel over the next two years, an area where Ryanair is aggressively growing.