Heathrow Airport saw a record number of passengers through its doors in July, BAA reveals.
The busiest day in the airport’s history was Sunday, 31 July, and throughout last month Heathrow had a record 6.9 million passengers.
Last year, domestic passengers were down by 13 per cent because of a 16 per cent cut in seating capacity by the airlines.
Britain’s biggest airport exceeded more than 68.5 million passengers in the last 12 months for the first time and now claims to be the world’s busiest airport.
BAA said that passenger numbers were up by 2.5 per cent on July last year as the summer holidays are well underway.
BAA also owns three Scottish airports – Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow – which all reported passenger growth last month; however numbers at Stansted fell by 7.2 per cent.
In total, BAA’s six airports carried 11 million passengers in July, with the majority of travellers heading to North America including popular destinations such as New York.
However, it seems that many people are looking to go even further afield as the number of passengers travelling to and from Brazil increased by 80 per cent in July 2011.
Colin Matthews, chief executive of BAA, said, “The growth in passenger traffic at Heathrow in July is good news for UK jobs, tourism and growth. Heathrow’s unique role in linking the UK to the world’s emerging markets is vital to Britain’s economic recovery.
“Heathrow’s performance was also good news for the thousands of families setting off on their summer holidays. To make the busy summer getaway easier for parents we introduced dedicated family lanes at security, children’s play areas in all terminals, and ‘kids eat free’ deals in restaurants.”
(Image: Magnus Bråth)
