A total of 6.2 million passengers passed through Heathrow in April 2014, up 6.7 per cent on the month when compared to last year.

Taking into account the Easter timing change from 2013, underlying growth was 1.9 per cent.

Seats per aircraft increased 1.3 per cent to 205.6, while load factors increased four percentage points to 78.3 per cent.

Passengers per aircraft increased 6.7 per cent to 161.

Within the emerging markets, China was up 12.5 per cent, Mexico was up 15.9 per cent, and India was up 9.2 per cent.

Cargo was up 4.4 per cent overall, increasing 26.8 per cent to China, 25.1 per cent to Mexico and 15.8 per cent to Russia.

Heathrow chief executive Colin Matthews said: “Our capital programme and continuous operational improvements have supported record customer satisfaction levels, with the proportion of passengers rating their journey as ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ increasing from fewer than half six years ago, to a record high of 80 per cent this quarter.

“With the brand new Terminal 2 set to open on June 4th, we hope to improve those scores further in 2014.”

John Holland-Kaye, currently Heathrow’s development director, was last week confirmed as the airport’s new chief executive.