Ryanair set another record for monthly traffic in August, with a total of 18.9 million passengers flown across the month.
The figure surpasses the 18.7 million customers carried in July, which itself was the first time the airline had flown over 18 million passengers in a single month.
Rolling 12-month passenger figures to the end of August stand at 177.4 million – up 20 per cent on the same stage in 2022.
In its most recent financial report to the end of June 2023, the group said that it expects to carry 183.5 million passengers over the 2024 financial year.
The new monthly record was achieved despite Ryanair having to cancel more than 370 flights (equating to around 63,000 passengers) as a result of last week’s UK air traffic control failure.
The carrier yesterday rejected the findings of NATS Preliminary Report into ATC failure, which was caused by the system being unable to interpret data from a single flight plan.
The airline said that there were “numerous inaccuracies” in the report, adding that it was “nonsense” for NATS to state that just 575 flights were delayed, when Ryanair itself had experienced delays to more than 1,000 flights to, from and over the UK on the day of the failure.
The carrier also said that it did not accept NATS’ claim that it is “not within remit” to provide cost reimbursement to customers.
“Ryanair pays NATS almost €100 million per annum. for an ATC service that is repeatedly short staffed and on the 28 August, collapsed altogether,” said the airline.
“The least NATS could and should do is to reimburse its airline customers for the tens of millions of pounds they have spent reimbursing passengers for their hotel, meals and transport expenses, which were entirely due to [the] NATS system failure.”
The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has confirmed it will launch an independent review into the incident, and said that “If there is evidence that suggests NATS may have breached its statutory and licensing obligations, the UK Civil Aviation Authority will take any appropriate steps”.
