Budget airline attracts record numbers

Ryanair says a record number of passengers travelled on its flights from Scotland last month.

The Irish-based budget airline saw a 36% rise in the number of travellers using its routes from the firm's Scottish base at Glasgow's Prestwick Airport in July compared with the same month last year.

The company says 110,000 passengers travelled on its services to locations including Paris Beauvais, Frankfurt Hahn and Brussels Charleroi airports.

Ryanair's most popular route from Scotland is the one to London Stansted Airport, which carried 62,000 travellers, 48% more than in July, 2000.

The airline's Scotland sales manager Kathryn Munro says: "These are incredible figures.

"With our new winter timetable schedule starting in October we'll be increasing our flights from Prestwick from 15 to 19 daily services and that will enable us to carry even more passengers."

She says the routes have also proved popular with tourists coming to Scotland.

Ms Munro adds: "These monthly results are great not only for Ryanair, but for Prestwick as well. It's a great airport, with all of the facilities and none of the hassle."

Ryanair, which began operating in 1985 with the launch of a daily flight on a 15-seater aircraft from Ireland's Waterford Airport to London Gatwick, carried 7.4 million passengers on 55 routes in 12 European countries last year. It expects that figure to rise to 9.2 million this year.