BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany’s Lufthansa Group (LHAG.DE) has retaken the crown as Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers from Ryanair (RYA.I) after the Irish budget carrier was forced to cut thousands of flights because of pilot rostering problems.
The Lufthansa group as a whole carried 130 million passengers last year, it said on Wednesday. The equivalent figure from Ryanair was 129 million, meaning Ryanair slips behind Lufthansa after overtaking it in 2016.
Lufthansa has grown rapidly, having taken over Brussels Airlines at the end of 2016 and aiming to grow its budget brand Eurowings to become Europe’s third largest point-to-point carrier.
