June is a bumper month for Ryanair and EasyJet

BUDGET airlines Ryanair and EasyJet yesterday said they had recorded year-on-year passenger increases after an exodus of passengers from premium rival British Airways (BA).

Figures for June showed that Ryanair carried more passengers than ever before, with 5.8m people using the Irish airline.

This represents a 13 per cent increase on passenger traffic from a year ago, and 100,000 more than the company’s previous record of 5.7m customers, set in August 2008.

Ryanair has flown 60m passengers over the last 12 months.

The low cost airline attributed the increase in passenger numbers to the company’s low prices, saying “Ryanair now carries twice BA’s monthly worldwide traffic and we will continue to grow as Ryanair continues to lower fares”.

Meanwhile, rival Luton-based EasyJet said it had carried 4.15m passengers in June, up 0.8 per cent from the same period last year.

But the number of full flights dipped by 0.6 per cent, to 86.3 per cent of total capacity.

The news comes just days after BA revealed its passenger numbers had fallen by five per cent, with business class performing particularly poorly.