LOW-COST airline Ryanair is celebrating after figures showed it carried more than two million passengers in one month.
The Irish company carried 2,038,896 travellers in July - at a time when thousands of British Airways passengers were stranded because of the Heathrow strike.
The Dublin group, which publishes its latest financial results today, said it was the first time a European low-cost carrier had broken through the two million mark.
Paul Fitzsimmons, head of communications, said: "Two million passengers in a month is a new record for Ryanair, and for a low fares airline outside the US.
"The latest passenger statistics, released today, show a traffic increase of 40 per cent compared to July 2002. This strong growth confirms Ryanair is on track to carry 24 million passengers in a year."
Ryanair's load factor, which measures the proportion of seats filled, also showed an improvement on last month, rising to 85 per cent from 79 per cent in June - giving it an average of 83 per cent during the past year.
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