Stansted loses battle for passengers
Stansted Airport continued to lose passengers last month, with a 7.2% slide compared with July 2010, which followed a 3.3% drop in June.
However, BAA's other UK airports had another record-breaking month, with Heathrow and Edinburgh recording their busiest-ever days.
Heathrow handled 6.9 million passengers last month, 2.5% more than in July 2010, and the airport recorded its busiest-ever day on Sunday July 31.
Edinburgh handled almost one million passengers, a rise of 3.3%, and on the 16th registered its busiest ever day, when some 36,000 passengers used the Scottish airport.
Seven of Heathrow's top 10 days were recorded throughout the month and average load factors reached 84.7%, which is also the best-ever achieved from the airport.
The total number of passengers at Heathrow during the last 12 months exceeded 68.5m for the first time.
The figures were achieved despite a 13.3% drop in domestic traffic at Heathrow, which was more than compensated for by a rise in long-haul business. Traffic to North America from Heathrow was up 5.3%, other long-haul routes saw a 3.2% increase and European scheduled traffic rose 3.1%.
By far the greatest increase in traffic was on flights to Brazil, host of the 2014 Football World Cup, which experienced an 80% year-on-year increase.
By Linsey McNeill
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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