TAP last month carried 247,525 more passengers than in July 2016, with the 29th being the day with the largest number, at 49,621, the company said in a statement.

The load factor was up 3.3 points on July of last year.

In the first half as a whole, the airline carried 1.6 million more passengers than it had in the same period of 2016.

The biggest growth in July was in Europe, with 152,000 more passengers than in the same month a year earlier. Of established markets, the standouts were Spain, with passenger numbers up 42.8%, the UK, up 30.7%, and Germany, up 27.9%.

The Czech and Hungarian markets, "boosted by the opening of the Budapest route", were up 138% overall, with a total of 20,000 passengers carried, the company said.

In the domestic market, it highlighted the 17,000 or 74% increase in passenger numbers on flights to and from the Azores.

The highest load factor, however, was in the South America market, at 91.2% - up 4.6 points on the year. Africa was up 6.4 points to 82.0%.

Portugal has been enjoying a boom in tourism, partly thanks to the security threats perceived by tourists to exist across North Africa and the Middle East.