London Gatwick saw 3.8 million passengers use the airport in July 2013 – up by nearly 200,000 compared to the prior year.

Underlying growth however is closer to 3.5 per cent as more people stayed at home in the UK last July to enjoy the London 2012 Games.

Passenger traffic on European routes continued to grow with over 2.7 million passengers choosing to fly from London Gatwick - an increase of 9.1 per cent in the prior year.

The top three European destinations were Spain, Italy and Greece.

This was complemented by growth on European business routes such as Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm, which added over 40,000 passengers.

easyJet’s new Moscow route also continued to be popular with over 19,000 passengers flying there from London Gatwick in July.

The loss of traffic to North America, down 10.7 per cent, was mainly due to US Airways ceasing services from London Gatwick earlier in the year.

Other long haul growth was up 9.3 per cent with connections to Dubai accounting for a quarter of the increase.

Traffic to China and Vietnam was also up 14.7 per cent and 26 per cent respectively.

Nick Dunn, chief financial officer, London Gatwick said: “While over 3.8 million passengers passed through Gatwick in July, the rate of growth needs to be adjusted to take into account the adverse impact on traffic of last year’s London 2012 Olympic Games.

“Considering this, we saw underlying growth of 3.5 per cent in July this year.

“It is encouraging to see growth in European traffic given the strong economic headwinds.

“We are also pleased to note the continued success of some of our newer long haul carriers such as Air China and Vietnam Airlines, which extended its services over the summer to offer passengers even more choice of when to travel to this key emerging market.”