Ryanair has come out ahead of its arch low-cost rival easyJet in its July traffic figures.

The Irish carrier announced that its passenger traffic grew by 19% during the month to 6.7m passengers, a new monthly traffic record.

easyJet also proved a strong in the downturn, up 4.3% in July to 4.66m passengers. Its load factor also rose – up 1% to 90.3%.

Ryanair attributed its continued growth to passengers during this recession increasingly switching from traditional flag carriers, such as Air France, BA, Lufthansa and Aer Lingus. Its load factor – the number of passengers as a proportion of the number of seats available – remained flat at 89%.

Ryanair’s Daniel de Carvalho said: “Ryanair continues to grow traffic strongly each month as passengers switch to Ryanair’s lowest fares and no fuel surcharge guarantee over the high fares and unfair fuel surcharges being levied by many of our competitors.

“Ryanair carried 19% more passengers this July than last year and Ryanair now carries almost three times BA’s worldwide recent traffic which clearly makes Ryanair ‘the world’s favourite airline’.”