Ryanair summer loss shrinks to £40m – but passenger numbers less than half of pre-pandemic levels

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The load factor – the percentage of seats filled – average 79 per cent over the summer, compared with 96 per cent two years ago. “In recent weeks, we have seen a surge in bookings for the October mid-term and Christmas breaks and we expect this peak buoyancy to continue into Easter and summer 2022.” He also attacked governments of other nations, saying: “The tsunami of state aid from EU governments to their insolvent flag carriers – Alitalia, Air France/KLM, Iberia, LOT, Lufthansa, SAS, TAP and others – will distort EU competition and prop up high cost, inefficient, flag carriers for many years.” As the Glasgow climate summit got under way, Mr O’Leary claimed: “Every passenger that switches to Ryanair from legacy airlines reduces their CO₂ emissions by up to 50 per cent per flight.” He said the Boeing 737 Max, for which Ryanair is the biggest customer in Europe, offers 4 per cent more seats, but consumes one-sixth less fuel. “These initiatives will help Ryanair achieve our target of cutting CO2 per passenger/km by 10 per cent to just 60 grams by 2030,” the chief executive said. Separately, Ryanair released its traffic figures for October 2021, which saw a rise in the load factor to 84 per cent – meaning an average of 30 empty seats on a Boeing 737-800 aircraft.