BAA handled a record 12m people through its airports last month, partly due to a 42.3% increase in passengers at Stansted Airport in August.
The growth came from increased frequencies and routes from the low-cost carriers Ryanair and Go and from KLM UK. A total of 1.1m passengers travelled through the airport.
Numbers at all BAA’s UK airports, which also include Heathrow, Gatwick, Southampton, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh, increased 5.8% year on year at 12.1m passengers.
Traffic in all flight sectors was up, with European scheduled bookings showing the biggest increase at 4.1m compared with 3.7m in August 1998. Stansted accounted for 80% of the rise.
The second fastest growing BAA airport was Edinburgh. The Scottish airport has started a £54m terminal development plan in order to provide the extra needed capacity.
Passenger numbers last month grew by 14.4% with 527,000 passengers.
Heathrow handled just under 6m passengers last month with 5.98m customers and 3.5m passed through Gatwick’s two terminals.