BAA's seven UK airports experienced their busiest ever month in August when they handled 13.7m, an increase of 3.6% on August 2002. It would seem that the problems of Gulf War II and SARS have been quickly forgotten by the travelling public. The fastest growing market in the month was European scheduled traffic, up 9.5%, fuelled by further rapid growth among the budget carriers, but there was also a 3% increase in traffic for full service airlines. North Atlantic traffic edged closer to parity with last year, recording a drop of only 1.1% in August, while other long haul routes collectively posted an increase of 3.6%. Charter activity was 1.2% lower than last year, whilst domestic traffic was up by 1.5%. Among the individual airports, all except Aberdeen recorded gains. Heathrow recovered steadily throughout the month following the aftermath of the British Airways' dispute in late July, achieving an increase of 1.4%. Gatwick recorded an overall rise of 2%, helped by a 20% jump in European scheduled traffic. Strong growth in European scheduled traffic also pushed Stansted higher with a gain of 13.5%.
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