RYANAIR CARRIED 5.66 million passengers in July, a 19 per cent increase on the same month of 2007.

The number of seats filled on each aircraft, however, declined to 89 per cent from 90 per cent in July 2007.

Ryanair's share price rose by 14.8 per cent to €2.583 in Dublin yesterday as the market responded to a fall in oil prices.

Ryanair said it carried 54.19 million passengers in the 12 months until the end of July. Its load factor over that period was 81 per cent. The airline said it was confident that traffic would would "remain strong" as it continues to discount fares this year.

Commenting on the results, Stephen McNamara, head of communications, said: "The most significant thing about today's figures is that we carried over 15 million passengers in the last three months."

Separately, Ryanair said yesterday that BravoFly Ltd, an Irish price comparison website, has confirmed that it has discontinued using information from the Ryanair.com website. Ryanair had issued legal proceedings against BravoFly to prevent it from quoting fares from the airline's website for its own purposes.

This is the second recent success Ryanair has scored against price comparison websites.