Budget airline Ryanair Holdings says it has surpassed one million passengers in a month for the first time in its 16-year history.
Ryanair said in a statement today that the number of passengers it carried rose by 35 per cent to 1.021 million in August on the same month a year ago.
The airline said it was on track to carry 9.3 million passengers in 2001, and its load factor - the number of seats it fills on its flights - rose by five percentage points to 85 per cent in August on the same month a year earlier.
The discount airline's performance in the dour economic conditions is in stark contrast to its bigger rivals, such as British Airways, which have been cutting capacity as the slowdown in the global economy bites.