There were 224,000 more passengers this August compared to last year, an 18.7% jump.

An official source at TAP said that August traditionally has little room for growth, but this year there was a great supply-side increase with new routes and frequencies.

In August, the greatest increase in passenger numbers was on routes to the rest of Europe, which carried an extra 146,000 passengers, 20.6% more than in August 2016, with a total of 854,000.

The airline also highlighted growth in all sectors where it flies. Intercontinental flights, Africa (26.1%), USA and Canada (15.7%), Brazil (7.7%) and Venezuela (5.7%) all meant that TAP carried 335,000 passengers on its long-haul flights in August, 15% more than the same month in 2016.

The occupancy rates were over 80% in all sectorsand approaching 90% in some cases.