Ryanair has increased its previous target by 25m
Ryanair confirmed on Thursday that it is expecting to fly 225m passengers each year by March 2026.
The announcement marks an increase of 25m on its previous target.
Ahead of the company’s AGM today, Ryanair is expecting to see traffic growth of 50%, compared to levels seen before the pandemic. This is an increase of 33% compared to previous estimates.
The Irish airline carried 149m passengers during the last full year before the pandemic came along.
For this year, while it has to deal with ongoing restrictions, it’s aiming to carry 100 passengers.
Chief executive Michael O’Leary said: “With these new deliveries, Ryanair will open 10 new bases across Europe this year as we work with airport partners to help them recover traffic & jobs post Covid, and take up slot opportunities that are being vacated by competitor airlines who have collapsed or significantly reduced their fleet sizes.”
“The Covid-19 pandemic has delivered an unprecedented blow to Europe’s aviation and tourism industries”, he added.
“Only Ryanair has used this crisis to place significantly increased aircraft orders, to expand our airport partnerships, and to secure lower operating costs so that we can pass on even lower fares to our guests, so that together with our airport partners, we can recover strongly from the Covid pandemic and deliver higher than expected growth in both traffic and jobs over the next 5 years.”
The Ryanair share price is up by 4.95% during the morning session on Thursday.