Ryanair saw passenger numbers rise by 6% in August to more than eight million. It was the second month in succession that the no-frills airline has carried over eight million passengers – a figure higher than any other carrier in Europe.
Numbers rose from 7.68 million flown in August last year. The airline’s load factor remained static at 89%. The August record meant the annual running total of passengers carried rose to 76.4 million.
EasyJet carried 6.5% more passengers in August this year than the same month in 2010. Numbers rose to 5.5 million in the month with a load factor almost unchanged at 92.2%. The rolling annual passenger total was up by 11.8% to more than 54 million.
Meanwhile, British Airways-Iberia parent International Airline Group (IAG) saw August traffic rise by 2.2% based on revenue passenger kilometres. Premium traffic was up by 8.7% over the same month last year while economy saw 1.4% growth.
But overall passengers carried dropped during the month by 3.6% to 4.8 million. Domestic carryings in the UK and Spain suffering the biggest drop, down by more than 22% to below 900,000.
Routes to Latin America and the Caribbean saw the highest growth, up by 9.8% to 436,000, followed by Asia/Pacific and North America.
Numbers flying to Africa, the Middle East and south Asia were down by 9.6% to 356,000, while European numbers rose by just 1.4% to 2.2 million.
“At this stage underlying trends are in line with our expectations, with continued growth in premium versus non-premium volumes,” IAG said.