Low-cost airline Ryanair will not operate a single flight on December 25, 2022 this year either. This has been the case for a number of years, as demand is traditionally extremely low on the two Christmas holidays.

The time around the end of the year is generally extremely busy, but not on December 25th and 26th. Many airlines are severely reducing their offerings. Ryanair does not fly at all on Christmas Day. Not a single flight has been planned for Christmas Day. On December 24, 2022, 1.654 connections will be offered, around 38 percent fewer than the day before.

Competitors Wizz Air and Easyjet will fly on December 25, 2022. However, to a significantly reduced extent. The orange low-cost airline offers 496 flights and Wizz Air has 692 flights within Europe. The fact that Ryanair generally does not fly on this day is by no means a kind of gift to the employees.

This is based exclusively on economic considerations. From the point of view of the Irish low-cost airline, demand is too low to be able to operate the fleet profitably. So they keep the planes on the ground and increase traffic after the Christmas holidays when there is high demand. However, this only affects routes that are in high demand, while there are temporary cuts on weaker routes.

For December 26, 2022, Ryanair has scheduled a total of 2.140 flights on 871 routes. At first glance, this sounds like a strong program. In a direct comparison with December 19, 2022, however, the offer has been reduced by 17 percent. This is also due to the fact that demand is lower than on other Mondays.