Budget airlines Ryanair Holdings PLC (LON:RYA) and Wizz Air Holdings PLC (LON:WIZZ) have reported double-digit growth in passenger numbers for the month of December.
Ryanair reported passenger numbers for the month of 10.3mln, up 12% year-on-year (YOY) while its load factor was at 95%.
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This was broken down to 10mln passengers for its main Ryanair division, up 9% YOY, and 0.3mln passengers for its Laudamotion arm.
On a rolling annual basis, the firm said it had carried 139.2mln passengers, up 8% YOY wit over 81% of its 57,000 scheduled December flights arriving on time.
Meanwhile, Wizz Air reported passenger numbers for the month had risen 18.3% YOY to around 2.6mln while the load factor increased 1.3 percentage points (ppts) to 88.8%.
In the rolling 12 months, Wizz Air passenger numbers were up 19.6% at 33.8mln while the load factor rose 1 ppt to 92.4%.
The group also increased its capacity in December by 16.5% to 2.99mln and added 14 new routes.
In early trading Thursday, Ryanair shares were up 0.1% at 10.5p while Wizz Air shares were up 1.6% at 2,798p.
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