Increase in passengers

Ryanair targets 50% increase in passengers over next decade.


Ryanair plans to poach tens of millions of customers from legacy carriers such as British Airways, Iberia and Lufthansa over the next decade to grow its traffic by more than half to 120m passengers.

The self-styled “ultra low cost carrier” intends to further stamp its dominance on the European aviation industry by attracting an extra 41m passengers and increasing its market share to almost a fifth over the next ten years.

Ryanair is already Europe’s biggest airline ahead of Lufthansa and easyJet, with a market share of 12%.

But Michael O’Leary, the airline’s chief executive, believes it can replicate the success of Southwest Airlines in the US, which has 128m passengers and a market share of just over 20%.

“Growth potential is almost unlimited,” said Mr O’Leary said. “If you take short haul per capita...you can see untapped growth available in large markets like Spain, the UK, Sweden, Belgium, Germany where we think there are significant opportunities.”

He added: “A lot of the growth will come from high fare, loss-making short-haul flights currently operated by the flag carriers switching over to Ryanair.”

Ryanair also expects to benefit from further airlines going to the wall after the recent closures of bmibaby, Italy’s WindJet and OLT Express in Poland.