Heathrow continued a record-breaking run last month as over 7.2 million passengers passed through the airport in October.
This marked a 6.8% increase against the same month in 2023 and was the sixth consecutive month in which passenger numbers exceeded seven million.
“This year has been all about breaking records at Heathrow,” chief executive Thomas Woldbye commented.
Some 83.8 million passengers were expected to fly from the airport over the full year, Heathrow forecast, outdoing the previous record set in 2019 by 2.9 million people.
Woldbye added Heathrow was on course to invest over £1 billion this year “to keep up with growing demand”.
Over 2.5 million passengers departed from Heathrow for the European Union in October, marking an 8.2% increase year on year.
Almost 1.9 million headed for North America in the meantime, reflecting a 4.0% uptick.
The number of passengers travelling to Asia also jumped by 12.4% and increased on routes within the UK, plus to the Middle East, Latin America and elsewhere in Europe.
It comes after International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (LSE:IAG), which owns Heathrow’s biggest slot holder British Airways, reported a 15.4% jump in fourth-quarter profit to €2.01 billion last week.
This reflected “particularly strong” demand for British Airways and its routes to North America, Latin America and Europe.