Air China Ltd said it carried 3.017 mln passengers in July, up 11.9 pct from a year earlier.

In the first seven months of this year, Air China carried 17.571 mln passengers, up 15 pct from the same period in 2005, it said in a statement.

Cargo throughput for July rose 15.2 pct to 71,052 tons, it said.

During the seven month period, it carried a total of 454,550 tons of cargo, up 13 pct year-on-year.

The overall passenger load factor in July hit a record 81.1 pct, up 3.1 percentage points compared to the same month last year.

It said it expects both the mainland passenger traffic and cargo volumes to significantly increase in the second half of 2006.