Gatwick achieved its twentieth successive month of growth in October, with more than 3.3 million passengers flying through the airport. This was 7.8% up on last year, representing an additional 241,000 passengers, and Gatwick’s busiest ever October.

Long haul continued to be the highest growth sector with new routes to New York and Los Angeles helping boost North Atlantic traffic to a 17.5% increase in October. Other Long Haul travel was up 11.3% with Dubai among the top performers, seeing an 8.2% growth.

Routes to emerging markets also increased with Vietnam up 12.3% and Garuda Indonesia’s new Jakarta services continuing to grow. New easyJet routes to Israel further added to Gatwick’s strong long-haul growth.

A record 21.7% of Gatwick passengers flew on business travel during October. New and existing business routes helped boost European scheduled traffic, which rose by 9.9% or 179,000 passengers. With one in five Gatwick passengers now travelling for business, new easyJet services to Paris, Strasbourg and Brussels have all seen strong growth.

The growing number of business passengers follows new research by Gatwick which identified a new wave of “Suited Savers” – discerning business travellers who favour value for money and fast, efficient travel, with an increasing interest in the emerging low-cost long-haul market. The research backs previous YouGov polling which found that Gatwick is the favoured expansion option for small business leaders in the UK.

Nick Dunn, Chief Financial Officer at London Gatwick, said: “Another record-breaking month for Gatwick further underlines the benefits of competition in the London market. We are continuing to see growth across a wide range of travel and airline models, from low cost carriers and European business travel, to long haul providers and emerging markets.

“With the airports expansion debate entering a crucial phase, these figures are a timely reminder that only an expanded Gatwick would support growth across the broadest range of airline models.

“With more flights to more markets, greater competition and lower fares, Gatwick is the obvious solution if we want all passengers and all types of travel to benefit from expansion.”