Budget airline Easyjet said it carried more than twice as many passengers in September as a year ago.

The firm's latest passenger numbers show that the no-frills airline sector is continuing to thrive.

Budget airlines have been the big winners in an industry suffering the after shocks of 11 September 2001, when terrorists crashed hijacked planes into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In September, Easyjet carried 1.5 million passengers, a 134% increase on September last year.

More fly with Go

Part of the rise in passenger numbers was due to Easyjet's takeover of its rival, Go, for �347m ($543m) earlier this year.

But individually each airline sold more tickets and carried more passengers than a year ago.

Go's passenger numbers rose by 39.1% to just over half a million travellers.

And Easyjet experienced an even stronger increase as 51.5% more people opted for its cheap flights formula than a year ago. It carried 1.03m passengers in September.

This was only slightly below the peak holiday month of August.

Analysts expect the trend in favour of budget carriers to continue as a depressed economy has made business travellers more price-conscious, putting yet more market share the low-cost airlines' way.

The declining market share of big names in the airline industry was highlighted when British Airways lost its place in London's FTSE 100 index of leading companies last month.

New routes lift sales

In a trading update, Easyjet said its full year results would show strong organic growth in sales as a result of the increased number of routes it was flying.

The airline, which is planning further expansion in its services, said it was still talking to both Boeing and Airbus about buying new planes.

It said pre-tax profit for the year to 30 September 2002 would be in line with market expectations and would include two months' contributions from Go.

Easyjet is due to publish its full year financial results on 26 November.