Ryanair, record passenger numbers in 2023
Record numbers of passengers, decline in profits and open war with online ticket sales agencies, these are the main indications given by Ryanairthe Irish low-cost airline led by Michael O'Leary. In fact, Ryanair closed 2023 with a new record of 181.8 million passengers, 13% more than last year. A year, 2022, in which the passenger record obtained before the pandemic was exceeded.
With these results the company seems to have definitively forgotten the horrible Covid years. This year, compared to those times, it has seen almost 20% more passengers travel. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the first airline in Europe in terms of number of travelers and the forecasts for the fiscal year that will end in fact estimate record numbers.
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Ryanair, open war with “deceptive” travel agencies
The company's short-term strategy is to continue the commercial war against online agencies such as Booking.com, Kiwi, eDreams, Lastminute and Kayak. The CEO did not mince words about them, calling them “pirates” and that they have not sold Ryan Air tickets since the beginning of December.
O'Leary's accusations are clear: they would try to deceive customers by charging them surcharges and preventing direct communication with the company in case of problems. This strategy of Ryan Air is also the result of two factors: firstly the pressure from consumer protection agencies and according to the ruling of the Irish Supreme Court, in favor of the low-cost company due to the complaint against the Flightbox company.
The crux of the dispute was that he had copied the content of Ryan Air's website to mislead potential customers into purchasing a ticket. It is also true that, according to the Irish number one, Online sales represent only a minimal part of bookings and no major repercussions in terms of traffic or profitability are expected from this strategy. In any case, profits are expected to decline slightly, between 1.85 billion euros and 2.05 billion euros.
The CEO's recipe for improving Ryan Air's profitability is simple: lower fares on its official website to encourage customers and give fares and tickets to “honest and transparent” travel agencies, such as Google Flights, which do not place surcharges and direct passengers directly to the company's official website.
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