Ryanair carried a record 16.9m passengers in August, an increase of 52% from the 11.1m that flew with the Irish airline a year ago when some Covid restrictions were still in place.

Ryanair operated over 92,800 flights last month at an average load factor of 96%, compared to August 2021 when flights were 82% full on average.

The company carried 2m more passengers than in August 2019 pre-Covid, and last week flew an average of 3,000 flights per day, according to the European air traffic control agency Eurocontrol.

The number of people flying with the budget carrier on a monthly basis has risen every month since March when passenger numbers were hit by the war in Ukraine.

From 11.2m guests at a load factor of 87% in March, traffic numbers increased month-on-month to 16.8m at 96% in July, with the airline adding 100,000 guests in August.

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On a 12-month rolling basis, Ryanair carried 148m people in the year to the end of August, an improvement of 236% from the 44m that flew with the company in the 12 months to August 2021.

Over the past year, Ryanair flights have had a load factor of 89%, up 14 points from the 75% capacity recorded between September 2020 and August 2021.

Ryanair booked a €190m profit for the first quarter of its financial year between April and June, with revenues rising from €370m to €2.6bn year-on-year. CEO Michael O'Leary said last month that he expects fares to increase by €10 over the next five years.

(Pic: Horacio Villalobos#Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)