Ryanair reported annual passenger traffic of more than 70 million for the first time today. However, its figures were inflated by close to 1.5 million passengers who did not fly because their flights were cancelled during the ash crisis.
The no-frills giant reported a 13% rise year on year in passengers in July to 7.61 million – the most it has ever carried in a month.
This took its total for the past 12 months to 70.1 million. But the figures are for passengers booked, not carried.
Ryanair revealed 1.45 million were booked on flights that were cancelled “due to the unnecessary closures of parts of European airspace”.
The figures are for Ryanair traffic across Europe, not just the UK and Ireland.