British Airways recently welcomed the Boeing Dreamliner to Heathrow

Heathrow Airport in London saw just under seven million passengers in August, an increase of 7.7 per cent on August 2012, according to the latest figures.

As with July the growth is largely attributable to comparatively lower traffic during the London Olympics last year.

Underlying growth for July and August, adjusting for the Games, was one per cent.

Load factors were high again whilst average aircraft size maintained its upward trend.

The average number of seats per aircraft was 204.2, up 3.4 per cent, while the number of passengers on each flight rose 6.9 per cent to 168.9, resulting in an average load factor of 82.7 per cent, up 2.6 percentage points on August 2012.

Broadly consistent with recent trends, Middle East and Central Asia traffic improved, with an increase of 13.4 per cent.

East Asia and South Asia were up 21.3 per cent and 18.3 per cent respectively.

Heathrow chief executive Colin Matthews, said: “Larger, fuller aircraft continue to contribute to rising passenger numbers at Heathrow.

“However, don’t imagine this will solve the UK’s hub capacity crisis.

“The country is falling behind its international rivals in links to emerging economies – which in turn means we’re losing the global race for jobs, trade and economic growth.

“Only a larger hub airport can put the UK back at the forefront of international connectivity.”