Etihad Airways carried a record 616,000 passengers in July (+9%), setting a new monthly record for the Abu Dhabi-based airline, while Friday July 31 was the carrier's busiest day in its five-year history with a

record 21,640 passengers and a load factor of 90.3%.

The airline said that the last week of July saw an average of more than 20,500 passengers board its planes each day. At the same time, the month of July saw Etihad operate 900 weekly flights – a 20% increase on July 2008, with first, business and economy class sections running at an average of 88% full.

James Hogan, Etihad Airways' Ceo said: ‘The record-breaking passenger numbers we have experienced in July demonstrate that, despite the current economic challenges, Etihad continues to attract high volumes of traffic across all three cabins on our global network of more than 50 destinations.

‘Whilst we expected July to be busy, we are delighted to have beaten our previous records, especially during the final week of the month when we carried more than 20,500 passengers each day. We now look forward to building upon this for the remainder of the summer holiday period and into the Holy Month of Ramadan.’

Etihad's flights to the Asia Pacific region and also North America turned in particularly strong performances during July with seat factors averaging more than 86%. Within Europe, loads exceeded 82% and in the Middle East region it was 77%.

Etihad introduced three new destinations in June – Larnaca, Athens and Istanbul – and it is continuing to expand its flight network with the launch of new direct flights from Abu Dhabi to Chicago in September and also to Cape Town.