Summer travel recovery last month boosted carryings by budget airlines Ryanair and Wizz Air.
The Irish no-frills airline group flew 11.1 million passengers against seven million in August 2020 with an improved load factor up nine percentage points year-on-year to 82%.
Ryanair operated more than 71,000 flights in the month as it said EU Covid certificates stimulated recovery.
At the same time Wizz Air carried more than 3.5 million passengers.
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The total was up by 50% on the number of people flown in the peak summer month last year as the first Covid travel curbs started to be lifted.
The Hungarian budget carrier increased August capacity to 4.2 million seats and operated with a load factor of 83.6% against 70.9% in the same month in 2020.
However, the airline’s rolling total of carryings for the 12 months to August 31 of 14.7 million was down 44% on the 26.6 million level achieved n the previous 2019-20 period.
Last month saw the carrier announce four new routes from Skopje in North Macedonia to Italy, Germany and Denmark from December
A second aircraft was allocated to its Sarajevo base in Bosnia and Herzegovina and sixth aircraft to its Tirana base in Albania to enable more routes including a link to Liverpool this winter.
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