Ryanair is back to flying 84 per cent of the number of passengers it was carrying before the pandemic, with its flight schedule last month almost as busy as it was in December 2019.
However, the latest data from Europe’s busiest short-haul airline also indicates the impact that the Omicron variant is having on business. Month-on-month passenger numbers were down by 700,000 or 7 per cent to 9.5 million as the carrier cut capacity by 8 per cent flying 870,000 fewer seats in December than it did in November.
That the figures remain, on the whole, positive helped to extend the rally in airline shares on the stock market. Shares in its short-haul rivals easyJet and Wizz Air and the British Airways owner International Airlines