Ryanair March traffic up 28% to 8.5m customers

Ryanair's March traffic rose 28% to 8.5m customers, while its load factor, the percentage of seats filled on the flight, increased 4% to 94% year-on-year.

In a statement on Monday, the budget airline also said its rolling annual traffic to March rose 18% to 106.4m customers.

Kenny Jacobs, chief marketing officer of Ryanair, said, "These record monthly numbers were delivered due to our lower fares, stronger forward bookings and the continuing success of our Always Getting Better (AGB) programme.

"Our 106m customers can look forward to further improvements in 2016 as we will shortly launch Year 3 of AGB."

Jacobs also revealed that French air traffic controllers' strikes caused the cancellation of over 500 of its flights labeling them as "unjustified."