Ryanair traffic up 11% October

Budget airline Ryanair posted an 11% jump in traffic for October on Monday.

For the group as a whole, traffic rose to 13.1 million from 11.8m in October 2017. Traffic at Ryanair grew 7% to 12.6m passengers, with a 96% load factor, while traffic at the Lauda airline came in at 0.5m customers, with an 89% load factor.

Chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs attributed the increase in traffic to lower fares and the "continuing success" of Lauda's summer schedule.

"During October, we were forced to cancel just over 300 flights because of a five day airport handler strike at Brussels Zaventem, some adverse weather (winter storms) and continuing ATC staff shortages in the UK, Germany and France," he said.

"We operated over 71,400 scheduled flights with over 80% of these flights arriving on time, as Ryanair continues to deliver the lowest fares, with the best punctuality of any major EU airline."

Ryanair bought 75% of Austrian airline Laudamotion earlier this year.

At 0900 GMT, the shares were up 0.4% to €12.82.