Ryanair Holdings PLC (LON:RYA) saw customers come flooding back in June as Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination campaigns encouraged countries to loosen travel restrictions.
The airline operated more than 38,000 flights in June with a load factor – a measure of how full the aeroplanes were – of 72%.
The total number of passengers carried was 5.3mln, up from 0.4mln a year earlier, when many nations were implementing lockdown restrictions that hit the airline industry hard. The number was also a sharp improvement on May’s 1.8mln passengers, although May’s load factor of 79% was higher.
Ryanair said it carried 8.1mln passengers – or “guests”, as it insists on calling them – in the second quarter of 2021, with a load factor of 73%.
Wizz Air Holdings PLC (LON:WIZZ) meanwhile said its planes were nearly two thirds full during June.
It carried 1.6mln passengers, up from 500,000 in June last year - the third highest month since the pandemic began.
Still, the figure was much lower than the pre-pandemic June 2019 figures when Wizz carried 3.6mln passengers.