London Heathrow Airport handled nearly a quarter of a million passengers in July as holidaymakers rushed to escape wet weather at home.

Over 73,000 flew to Turkey, the busiest ever month for the country from London’s biggest airport.

Departures to Gibraltar, Portugal and Italy were also close to record levels in July, according to Heathrow.

However, New York was the most popular destination from the London airport, which serves more than 100 long-haul routes.

Heathrow said that despite being busy, it had managed to keep security queues to consistently under five minutes.

A total of 7.6 milllion people travelled through the airport in July, which was still below pre-pandemic levels.

New flights to Riga and Belgrade will start in October, operated by British Airways, Virgin Atlantic will re-launch flights to Dubai, and Lufthansa will start serving Salzburg and Friedrichshafen in time for Christmas festivities.