BAA's seven UK airports handled a total of 12.2m passengers in April, a decline of 1.6% on the same month a year ago.

BAA said the total number of air transport movements at BAA airports rose by 1.6%. European scheduled traffic was up 0.1%, and other long haul traffic grew by 1.1%, while European charter traffic fell 13.8% and North Atlantic traffic fell back by 2.1%. Domestic and Irish Republic traffic also fell by 2.6% and 7.1% respectively.