London’s most popular airport, Heathrow, has recorded their third busiest month to date in July, giving a much needed lift to the entire air industry. The largest airport in the UK handled 6.48 million passengers last month, which was up by almost one per cent against the same period last year.

The operator BAA said that passenger numbers had begun to stabilise across their seven airports in July. A rise of long haul travellers helped lift the company to 14.5 million for the same month, but was still down by 2.4 per cent compared to July 2008.

Heathrow is thought to have weathered the tide well because it is the only hub airport in the UK and passengers are still travelling there to make connections to other destinations.

Average passengers numbers per plane shot up at Heathrow reaching 162 per departing and arriving planes, a record high for the airport, but it is thought to be attributed to a decrease in frequency or cancellations of some flights.

Scheduled services to European destinations rose by 1.2 per cent but that was knocked away by charter flights, which were down 18.6 per cent. Long haul flights to North America dropped by eight per cent, however other long haul destinations gained some places with a rise of 4.8 per cent compared to last year.

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