European ULCCs Ryanair and Wizz Air both reported rises in passenger numbers for December 2023 and for the full year, while Ryanair warned that the removal of its flights from online travel agent (OTA) websites, a move it has welcomed, would nonetheless have a short-term negative effect on its load factors. 

Ryanair has been denouncing the practices of many OTA websites for some time and calling for consumers to be better protected from them. The airline describes many of the sites, including Kiwi.com and Super Saver, as “pirates” and says they overcharge customers for ancillary services.

Ryanair said the removal of its flights from many OTA websites at the beginning of December 2023 would reduce load factors by 1-2% for that month and in January 2024 and would have a short-term softening effect on yields as the airline offers more lower fares to passengers in response.  “This welcome removal may be the result of pressure from Consumer Protection Agencies or a response to the recent Irish High Court ruling, which granted Ryanair a permanent injunction against screenscraper Flightbox from unlawfully scraping Ryanair.com content for OTAs, or in response to Ryanair’s KYP (Know Your Passenger) customer initiatives such as verification,” Ryanair said. 

The airline said OTA bookings only account for “a small fraction of bookings” and “we do not expect this recent removal of OTA Pirate bookings will materially affect our [fiscal 2024] traffic or profit after tax guidance.” 

Ryanair said that following the removal, it would lower fares where necessary to encourage passengers to book on Ryanair.com.

Ryanair said passenger numbers rose 9% year-on-year in December 2023 to 12.54 million, with a load factor down 1 point at 91%. The airline said over 900 flights were canceled because of the Israel-Hamas war, but it operated over 72,500 flights in December. 

Its rolling average for the year rose 13% to 181.8 million passengers while its load factor was up 2 points at 94%.

Wizz Air also gave a traffic update, saying that in December 2023, it carried 4.96 million passengers, an 18.8% increase compared to December 2022, at a load factor of 82.1%.

The Hungary-based ULCC’s load factor for the rolling 12 months to end-December 2023 rose to 90.8 points, up from 86.7, while passenger numbers rose 32.1% to 60.31 million.

Wizz Air Abu Dhabi doubled its number of flights to 15,000 in 2023 as a whole and carried more than three million passengers, with a fleet of 12 now flying to 40 destinations, the airline said.