950 FLIGHTS GROUNDED
RYANAIR has revealed it had to cancel over 950 flights due to the Israel-Hamas conflict, despite flying more passengers last month than in January 2023.
The budget airline said it had 12.2million customers in January 2024, an increase of 3% on the 11.8million people it flew in the same month last year.
It ran about 71,000 flights during January, but was forced to cancel flights as a result of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
The carrier’s load factor – an important measure for airlines of how well they are filling the seats on their planes – dipped from 91% to 89% year-on-year.
Ryanair said the load factor fell because of the removal of its flights from some ‘pirate’ online travel agents (OTAs) in December.
Sites including Booking. com, Kiwi and Kayak stopped selling Ryanair flights in early December, a decision the airline previously said it ‘welcomed’ because it complained the sites sold its flights without permission.
Ryanair has for years accused the websites of adding illegitimate extra charges and launched a series of court cases against them, but appeared to be taken by surprise when they stopped selling the airline’s tickets. The carrier flagged that the move would hit revenues as it is forced to slash fares to fill seats, leading it to cut its full-year profit outlook. OTAs made up 10-15% of bookings, the airline said.
However, the budget airline has said the move will ultimately be positive, stopping people from being overcharged and forcing the websites that do not send customers to Ryanair’s own booking system to agree to do so.