Ryanair traffic up 13% in September

Budget airline Ryanair reported a 13% jump in traffic for September on Tuesday.

Traffic rose to 10.8m customers from 9.5m in the same month last year, while the load factor – which gauges how full the flights were – increased to 95% from 94%.

On a rolling 12-month basis, traffic was up 16% to 113.2m customers.

Chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs attributed the rises to lower fares and the continuing success of the company’s "Always Getting Better" customer experience programme.

“As our recent guidance confirmed, we expect average fares to fall by between 10% to 12% in the 6 months to March 2017, so there's never been a better time to book a low fare flight on Ryanair.

“All customers who wish to book their summer 2017 holidays should do so now on the Ryanair.com website or mobile app, where they can avail of the lowest fares in Europe."

Also on Tuesday, Ryanair announced a major recruitment drive as it plans to take delivery of 50 new aircraft in the next 12 months.

The airline said it will be hiring 2,000 new cabin crew, 1,000 pilots and 250 aircraft engineers. In addition, it will promote more than 300 first officers on its command upgrade programme.

A range of new positions will also be created in IT, sales & marketing, digital experience, finance and commercial at Ryanair’s Dublin office, as well as at its Travel Labs Poland subsidiary in Wroclaw.

At 1500 BST, Ryanair shares were down 0.4% to €12.14.