Passenger numbers at Ryanair rose 38 per cent in October as the company carried close to 16 million passengers on flights during the month.

The company carried a total of 15.7 million passengers in October, compared with 11.4 million a year earlier, and 15.9 million in September.

Load factor, a measure of how full the aircraft are, was 94 per cent.

Air traffic has recovered steadily from measures imposed to help slow the spread of Covid-19. In the past 12 months, Ryanair has carried 157.4 million passengers.