Ryanair remains Europe's most popular airline

The International Air Transport Association's (IATA) World Airline Transport Statistics confirmed on Tuesday that Ryanair remained Europe's favourite airline, carrying more international scheduled customers than any other company.

To celebrate the news, Ryanair released 100,000 seats for sale across its European network, at prices starting from £19.99 for travel in July & August that will be available for booking until 25 June.

According to forecasts, Ryanair will carry more than 100m customers in 2015.

The Irish Budget airline carried over 86.3m international passengers last year, 30m more than second-placed Easyjet (56.3m) and almost 40m more than third-placed Lufthansa (48.2m). Emirates was the fourth most popular airline, followed by British Airways, Air France and Turkish Airlines.

The Association also commented that passenger travel on international markets rose 3.8% in April compared to a year ago, slower than the 4.6% result in March.

In addition, there was a rise in premium international air travel volumes in April compared to March, “but given developments in demand drivers and the inherent month-to-month volatility in the data, this does not necessarily mean an upturn in the trend,” it said in a statement.

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