Nearly six million passengers travelled through Heathrow last month in what was the busiest ever April for the West London airport, latest figures show.

More than 5.8 million people used the UK’s biggest airport throughout April – an increase of 31.5% compared with the same period last month – according to BAA, whose other British airports also had a good month.

The figures are in sharp contrast to the same month last year when the aviation industry was rocked by the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud crisis, which kept planes out of the sky for weeks. In addition to not having the ash cloud to contend with, airports were boosted this month by the Easter holidays falling solely in April and travellers looking to take advantage of the extra royal wedding bank holiday.

There was a 31% increase to 9.1 million passengers using BAA’s six UK airports last month compared with April 2010. Stansted saw passenger numbers rise by 26.2% and there was an 18.5% increase at Southampton.

Meanwhile, in Scotland it was also a record breaking month for Edinburgh Airport, which had an unprecedented number of travellers go through its doors. A surge in traveller numbers of 43.9% saw a total of 776,300 passengers use the airport.

Glasgow increased the number of passengers using its airport by 27.1% during the month and Aberdeen was up 33.2% with 247,100. In total, more than 1.5 million people used the BAA airports in Scotland during the month.

Copyright © Press Association 2011

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