Ryanair carried 10.2m passengers in November

Ryanair carried a total of 10.2 million passengers in November, as travel restrictions tightened with the discovery of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 .

That compares with 11.3 million in October and just 2 million in November 2020, when Covid-19 restrictions severely curtailed travel.

Load factor – a measure of how full the airplanes are – was 86 per cent last month, up from 84 per cent in October and 62 per cent in November 2020.

Ryanair operated more than 62,300 flights last month.

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The airline saw its shares rebound on Wednesday, in common with other travel stocks, advancing 4.7 per cent to €14.91. Travel stocks had been hit in recent days by the discovery of the new variant by health authorities in South Africa, with cases subsequently identified in Europe and the US.

Authorities have placed limitations on flights and reintroduced requirements for pre-travel testing in a bid to slow the spread of the new variant.