Ryanair’s chief executive officer Michael O’Leary says the current trend of increasing bookings indicates that Ryanair is recovering, “much faster than any other airline in Europe.”
Speaking at a media conference in Spain on August 24, 2021, O’Leary said the Irish budget air carrier expects to carry 10.5 million people in August 2021.
Passenger traffic and load factor data provided by the air carrier shows that in July 2021, Ryanair flew 9.3 million travelers with its aircraft 80% loaded. The current numbers seem to be promising, as in 2020 , the airline carried only 4.4 million passengers in July 2020.
“Bookings for the remainder of this year, through September, October, November are looking very strong, but pricing is weak. […] We are selling a lot of cheap seats to recover the market very quickly,” O’Leary said at the conference, reported by Reuters.
Ryanair also expects to see high demand for its flights through autumn 2021 thanks to that policy of selling seats at low prices”
The budget carrier also continues to implement its expansion plans in Northern Europe. Following the latest investment into the Swedish market, announced on August 20, 2021, Ryanair is eager to launch operations from its new base at Stockholm Arlanda (ARN) in winter 2021. The move should allow the company to expand its network by new routes across 25 European destinations.
In addition to the ARN base, Ryanair will also strengthen its positions in Goteborg Landvetter Airport (GOT), where the air carrier is set to launch domestic service to Stockholm (ARN), as well as Riga (RIX), Billund (BLL), and Kaunas (KUN).