The start of the summer peak helped push up numbers at Ryanair as it became the first airline to fly 10 million international passengers in a month.
The no-frills carrier saw July carryings rise by 11% to 10.1 million with an improved load factor of 95%, up four percentage points on the same month last year.
Chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said: “This is the first time ever that any airline has carried over 10 million international customers in one calendar month.
“For example, we carried more customers in one month – 10.14 million in July – than Aer Lingus carried in a whole year – 9.77 million in 2014.
“These record customer numbers and highest ever load factors are due to our lower fares, our stronger forward bookings and the continuing success of our ‘Always Getting Better’ customer experience programme, which continues to deliver stronger than expected traffic and load factors on our biggest ever summer schedule.”
He added: “Ryanair customers can look forward to more service enhancements in the autumn, as we continue year two of our Always Getting Better programme, which include a new website, new app, new cabin interiors, new crew uniforms, improved inflight menus, reduced fees, and great new digital features such as ‘hold the fare’, as Ryanair continues to deliver so much more than just the lowest fares in Europe.”
The Ryanair announcement came as Wizz Air revealed that it had carried 20% more passengers year-on-year in July at 1.9 million at a load factor of 92.7% as it took delivery of its 63rd Airbus A320.