Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on November 25, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleRyanair's December bookings are slightly ahead of last year, with 40% of seats still available. The airline expects to fly 207 million passengers by end-March.
VIENNA (Reuters) -Budget airline Ryanair's bookings for December, including the important Christmas period, are slightly ahead of where they were a year ago, with around 40% of seats remaining to be sold until the end of this year, CEO Michael O'Leary said on Tuesday.
The airline, Europe's largest by passenger numbers, said earlier this month it expected to fly 207 million passengers in the year to end-March, one million more than earlier forecast, after improved deliveries of aircraft from Boeing enabled it to add capacity in the first half and the current quarter.
"Bookings for Christmas are running strongly ahead. At the moment we're about half a percent ahead on forward bookings for where we were this time last year, and average fares at the moment are up sort of mid- to high-single-digits," O'Leary told a press conference at Vienna International Airport.
He added that Christmas and December were essentially interchangeable, though a Ryanair spokesperson clarified that he was referring to December as a whole.
"December is essentially Christmas. There's not a lot going on in the first two weeks of December," O'Leary said.
(Reporting by Francois Murphy. Editing by Jan Harvey and Mark Potter)
A budget airline is a carrier that offers low fares by eliminating many traditional passenger services, often charging extra for additional services.
Travel bookings refer to the process of reserving transportation and accommodations for travel, typically done through online platforms or travel agencies.
Passenger capacity is the maximum number of passengers that a transport vehicle, such as an airplane, can carry at one time.
The aviation industry encompasses all aspects of air travel, including airlines, airports, and manufacturers of aircraft and related services.
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