No-frills airlines on the rise gain

Aggressive growth strategies by leading discount carriers are poised to overthrow Europe’s established airline order.

Ryanair, already Europe’s top low-cost operator, boosted its passenger tally 15% to 117m in 2016, a figure that is set to give it the biggest annual tally of any carrier in the region, ahead of Lufthansa, which reports numbers next week.

Norwegian Air Shuttle attracted 29.3m passengers last year, it said yesterday, a 14% increase that is likely to put it ahead of SAS Scandinavian Airlines for the first time.