Record rise in Gatwick passengers

This August saw 132,500 more passengers through the airport compared to last year, which continues a recent trend of year on year increases.

Overall capacity was up by 86,000 seats with growth to a wide range of Spanish, Italian, Swedish and Canadian destinations.

The school summer holidays saw year-on-year growth with around half a million passengers travelling through Gatwick over the August bank holiday weekend.

The most popular destinations were Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and Dalaman.

Average load factors rose by 1.4 percentage points to the highest ever level - 88.4% this month compared to the same month last year.

Air transport movements grew 2.1% with short haul markets seeing the greatest gains.