Staff numbers and costs

12 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2024

Staff numbers and costs

Staff numbers and costs

17.         Staff numbers and costs

The average weekly number of staff, including the Executive Director, during the year, analyzed by category, was as follows:

	Year ended
	March 31,
	2024	2023	2022
Flight and cabin crew	21,602	18,432	15,289
Sales, operations, management and administration	2,896	2,365	1,958
Average	24,498	20,797	17,247

At March 31, 2024 the Company had a team of 27,076 aviation professionals (2023: 22,261; 2022: 19,116).

The aggregate payroll costs of these persons were as follows:	Year ended
	March 31,
	2024	2023	2022
	€M	€M	€M
Staff and related costs	1,335.4	1,085.4	641.1
Social welfare costs	156.1	80.8	32.5
Other pension costs (a)	12.4	9.0	7.9
Share based payments	(3.9)	16.2	8.6
	1,500.0	1,191.4	690.1

(a) Costs in respect of defined-contribution benefit plans and other pension arrangements were €12m in 2024 (2023: €9m; 2022: €8m).

Staff costs capitalized into assets (and therefore excluded from the table above) during the fiscal year 2024 amounted to €58m (2023: €36m; 2022: €28m).

Government grants and assistance

During recent years, many European countries in which the Ryanair Group operates made available payroll support schemes. The Ryanair Group utilized a number of these employment retention schemes to protect jobs within the Group. These schemes were a mix of short term Covid-19 specific programs and longterm schemes linked to social security that existed pre Covid-19. The total amount of payroll supports received by the Group under the various schemes amounted to €nil in fiscal year 2024 (2023: €nil; 2022: €82m) and are offset against staff costs in the consolidated income statement. Such supports wound down significantly in the second half of fiscal year 2022.

In April 2020, the Group raised £600m unsecured debt for general corporate purposes under the HMT and Bank of England CCFF. The 0.44% interest rate was the prevailing rate for strong BBB rated companies. This debt was extended in March 2021 for a further 12 months at a 0.46% interest rate. In October 2021 the Group repaid the £600m HMT and Bank of England CCFF in full.

There are no unfulfilled conditions attaching to government assistance at March 31, 2024.