More passengers travelled through Heathrow last month than any other April in the airport’s history.
Some 5.8 million passengers were handled at BAA’s London airport during a month which contained three public holidays – for Easter and the royal wedding.
The figure is a 31.5% increase on April 2011, when Europe was in the middle of the volcanic ash crisis, which saw thousands of passengers stranded after flights were grounded.
Despite the peak traffic, Heathrow also managed to attain its best punctuality levels, matching the record set in October 2009.
Colin Matthews, BAA’s CEO, said: “These figures reflect the results of our £1 billion annual investment and the commitment of 77,000 staff from 320 companies who work at the airport.”
The airport hired more multilingual customer service agents and set up dedicated family security lanes, in a bid to better cope with the large numbers of travellers.
BAA's Edinburgh Airport also saw record passenger numbers in April, with 776,000 passengers travelling through the airport.