Lufthansa has already carried more passengers in the first 10 months of this year than it did for the whole of 2016, thanks to rapid growth at its Eurowings budget brand and the takeover of Brussels Airlines. Ryanair overtook Lufthansa Group as Europe's largest airline by passenger numbers last year, but Lufthansa is slightly ahead so far this year. Lufthansa last year carried 109.7m passengers. By the end of October this year, it had carried 111m passengers, it said Thursday in a monthly traffic update. In the first 10 months of 2017, Ryanair carried just over 110m passengers. Along with expansion thanks to Eurowings and Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa is also set to be a big beneficiary of the collapse of local rival Air Berlin. <br/>
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United Airlines ended October with a mixed bag of results on the traffic front. United saw domestic traffic climb 5.8% in October, compared to October a year ago, per data released by the airline late Wednesday. That increase was driven by boosts in mainline passenger counts, which climbed 5.8%. Regional traffic domestically decreased 0.2% year over year. On the international front, however, it was a different story, where traffic was down everywhere except on trans-Atlantic routes, which rose a modest 1.3% in October compared to a year ago. Trans-Pacific traffic, an area where United has been trying to gain a competitive edge, took the biggest hit, down 6.4% year over year. Latin America traffic also was down 2.8%. However, with the uptick in domestic traffic. United's consolidated traffic across all routes was up 1.7% in October. <br/>
Air NZ is warning passengers to consider taking out domestic travel insurance and turn up early during the summer peak during which it will put on 90,000 more seats. Some passengers and crew missed flights last summer after congestion at Auckland Airport. Air NZ will operate 2.2m seats across its domestic network over the peak December-January period, 90,000 more than the same period last year. Air NZ has added more than 180 extra flights between Dec 21 and 31 to get holidaymakers to and from their destinations. The busiest flying days are expected to be Thursday, Dec 21 through to Christmas Eve with passenger numbers peaking Friday, Dec 22, when Air NZ will provide more than 45,000 seats across about 530 domestic flights. <br/>