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THERE WAS LOTS of good news for Ryanair today.
The budget airline released details of its performance for February and passenger numbers are up 29% from this time last year, with 5.8 million passengers carried compared to 4.5 million this time last year.
Rolling year-on-year traffic is up 9% to 89.1 million passengers as the figures inch ever closer to the hallowed 100 million mark.
Meanwhile load factors (basically a measure of how cost-efficient an airline is) increased by 11% to 89%.
“We’re delivering so much more than just the lowest fares in every market we operate in,” said head of marketing Kenny Jacobs.
The airline has also announced the purchase of an additional three aircraft, bringing their current stock of Boeing 737-800 planes to 183. The planes will be delivered in early 2016.
Finally, the company revealed it had secured €850 million in funding at very low cost via an eight-year bond issue at 1.125% (to put this in perspective the same amount was raised last June, but for seven years and at 1.875%).
The bond issue was more than three times over-subscribed which gives an indication of the level of esteem investors hold for the budget airline.
This money will be most immediately used to fund the new fleet of 200 Boeing MAX 200 planes that the airline announced yesterday, aircraft that CEO Michael O’Leary sees as ’gamechangers’ for the future.
These orders will see us expand our fleet to over 520 aircraft and increase our passengers carried to 160 million per year by 2024, he said.
O’Leary claims the increase in traffic will see Ryanair create 10,000 new jobs for pilots, cabin crew and engineers over the next ten years.
Ryanair yesterday announced a new customer charter for 2015 as part of its ‘Always Getting Better’ (seeming less mean to customers) plan.
Some of the reforms announced as part of the company’s eight-point plan include the ability to ‘hold’ a fare for 24 hours for €5, lower penalties for airport check-in, and new staff uniforms from a ‘young European designer’.
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5th largest airline in the world….
Which is an incredible feat.
No room for feet pal, move over.
Champion airline. Good work Mr. O leary. A man could respect in government. Not a failed school teacher.
And that will climb with the expansion they have planned!
Fleet !!
Handy for a quick flight home to London but I flew to Tenerife from Dublin last year, it was very uncomfortable. The flight cost €330. My friend flew from Stansted same dates with Ryanair for £110. They charge Irish passengers at least 50% more than UK passengers.
It’s all about demand. Prices are dictated by the numbers
Irish passengers actually pay less for their flights than UK passengers. Living in Manchester I fly home to Dublin regularly and if my return flight from Dublin is £20 on the UK website it will be selling for €20 on the Irish website, so at the current rate quite a lot cheaper.
Yes cheap flights to the UK from Dublin. Going to Europe you pay a lot more.
Sorry Mike, but you’re wrong again. Picking a random date in July (the 18th/19th) and coming back a week later, flying to Lanzarote from both Manchester and Dublin works out €80 cheaper from Dublin, so your 50% increase in price for Irish passengers is clearly plucked from thin air!
Dublin -Tenerife 8th July-15th will cost you €344. Manchester- Tenerife £178. From Stansted £151. This is typical for flights to Europe from Ireland. Fact!!
Just checked your Dates to Lanzarote. Dublin-Lanzarote €401. Manchester-Lanzarote £292. Stansted-Lanzarote £206. Feel free to check…….
@Mike.A lot of factors dictate the price of a flight ticket:
- the day when you purchase it.
- the dates of yr trip( week end or not ).
- airport taxes ( London heathrow applies the most expensive taxes in Europe).
- availability on the plane.
- minimum stay/max stay
Mike are you Rafa Benitez in disguise? Just checked the flights that i quoted above, Manchester – Lanzarote 19th-26th July, £341.98, Dublin – Lanzarote on the exact same dates €361.98. Using a well respected foreign exchange website, those flights are now €110 more expensive from Manchester! On todays exchange rate £342 is €471.60!
No honey I picked friday 17th- Friday 24th. They don’t fly every day from the 3 airports. Feel free to look up those dates!!
Not sure what sort of anti-Ryanair web browser you are using Mike, but on the exact same dates (Friday 17th – Friday 24th) I’ve found the flights for €336.98 at their cheapest from Dublin and £284.98 from Manchester, which still converts to €398.21. So not only are Ryanair flights from Dublin not 50% more expensive than the ones from the UK, they are actually a good deal cheaper!
Im not anti ryanair silly!! I use them all the time. Get a bus down to stansted (another UK airport!) you will get an even cheaper flight than in Manchester.
The sky interior looks super, cant wait for Ryanair to install them!
I’ve been flying Ryanair for over 15 years now very regularly. Very few problems. They do take advantage in certain situations but I’ve had awful experiences with Aerlingus, Thomas Cook AND Jet2 customer service in the past 15months, and use them a fraction of the frequency! Unless you’re looking at the likes of emirates, every major airline has pretty much adopted & adapted Ryanair’s business model, none as successfully! Very much an anti-ryanair agenda in alot of media over the years mostly derived from powers with vested interests no doubt.
Although I’ve been ripped off by them on a few occasions, I say fair play to them as a company, enabling alot of us to makes trips over the years we otherwise couldn’t have afforded!
By all accounts,
A Ryanair calendar,
A bottle of Paddy and 400 Major cigarettes is the prize for the 100th million passenger ….
I personally knew the 1 millionth passenger – promised lifetime travel. It lasted a couple of years and then it stopped — just buy the 100 millionth a nice dinner it would hold more value for the winner!
I love those new seats. Finally my chance to become a member of the mile high club!
I’m flying Ryanair next Monday. Wouldn’t it be nice to be surprised at the gate with “Congratulations sir, you are our 100,000,000th customer. Your prize is a change of flight to even greater comfort and arrival even closer to your destination. Here’s an Aer Lingus ticket”
Brilliant Airline, never had an issue with them.
When you say pass the 100 millionth passenger for the first time, surely it can’t be passed for a second or third time?
I thought I was the only one bothered by that one!!
It’s a rolling 12 month number so it can fluctuate up or down, therefore it’s possible for the trend to go above 100m then back down and so on….
It’s a total for the year so, if they are successful then there should be one every year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_largest_airlines#By_passengers_carried_.28millions.29 5th biggest Airline in the world by passenger numbers.. pretty amazing.
Well it was great market to corner.
If you look st any flight map as congested as American skies are Europe has more in a tight space. Ryanair model would not work in South America or Asia.
How much do the journal get from Ryanair for all the publicity? Its non stop
It may be non stop but it lands in an airport an hours bus ride away from your actual destination. See what I did there.
Ryanair have 305 737-800 aircraft (the latest was delivered from Boeing on Saturday afternoon), not 183 as stated above.
The 183 are the B738NG’s on order, there is a further 200 B737 MAX200′s on order
When the likes of Ryanair, Lidl and Aldi are flourishing, it’s an indicator that the average person is not.
Explain you want brown Thomas and Aer lingus
I believe that Ryanair has its own special Small Claims Court to deal with the huge amount of complaints from its passengers.
You get what you pay for!
I happily pay. I e flown with them 40 odd times and never had bad experience.
Great value IF you play ball and follow their rules you won’t have to worry.
O’Leary rocks.
I was on Ryan tear twice and both times I didn’t like them, both times late as well.
Try Aer lingus for time and then you will know what late is
Surely passing the 100th million mark is a one off, yet the headline says ‘for the first time’
have your say