Almost 8 million travellers passed through Heathrow in July, with the airport recording 1.8m passengers for three weeks in a row.

Before last month, the airport had never surpassed 1.8m passengers in a week but hit the record-breaking figure in the three weeks from 8-28 July.

Between January and July 2024, 47.8m passengers used the airport, up 6.9% on the same time in 2023, securing Heathrow’s position as the busiest airport in Europe for the first half of the year.

Six of the airport’s busiest ever departure days were during the week of 22 July – the week the schools broke up for summer – with 140,000 passengers leaving Heathrow daily.

However, the airport said transfer passenger numbers dropped by 90,000 because of the introduction in 2023 of the £10 Electric Travel Authorisation (ETA) for nationals from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Heathrow said the ETA was ‘devastating for our hub competitiveness’.

Meanwhile, Manchester Airport Group (MAG) reported record figures, with Manchester Airport recording its busiest July on record with 3.2m passengers, up 6.2% on last July.

Stansted broke its July record, with 2.9m passengers, up 3.4% on last July and the third busiest month in the airport’s history. East Midlands Airport recorded 521,000 holidaymakers last month, a 5.2% increase on July 2023.