BAA”S seven UK airports handled a total of 8.8m passengers in January 2003, an increase of 10.7% over January 2002 helped by strong traffic over the Christmas and New Year holiday period. Amongst the airports, Heathrow was 7.1% higher than January 2002. Gatwick has still not fully recovered from 11 September 2001 and its aftermath. Although it recorded a 10.0% increase over January 2002, it was still 8% lower than January 2001. The largest gains were recorded at airports with the highest concentration of low cost carriers. Stansted added 30.5%, Edinburgh grew by 16.1% and Glasgow was also up by 10.2%. All major markets recorded increases compared to January 2002. Domestic and European scheduled traffic saw gains of 14.9% and 13.3% respectively, whilst European charter traffic added 5.4%. North Atlantic routes increased by 9.0%, but have not recovered to levels recorded prior to 11 September 2001. A two year comparison shows the North Atlantic market to be still 2.0% down. http://www.baa.co.uk