Almost 850,000 take up Ryanair offer

Almost 850,000 people took advantage of the free-seat offer made by low-fare airline Ryanair last month, it was announced today.

A total of 847,613 seats were snapped up during the period of the offer - September 17 to September 26, the Irish carrier said.

“We are delighted with the outcome of our seat sale,” said Ryanair’s commercial director Michael Cawley.

He went on: “During this seat sale we were taking up to 33 million hits per day on our website and over 11,000 bookings an hour.”

Meanwhile, rival no-frills carrier bmibaby said it had sold 87.3% of its capacity out of East Midlands Airport in August 2002.

The single biggest route was Dublin, with more than 12,000 seats sold. Its newest route to Ibiza was more than 95% sold.