London Stansted Airport saw a record-breaking month, with more than 2.7 million passengers travelling through the airport in July as the summer holiday season got underway.

East Anglian Daily Times: Stansted Airport's new restaurant The Camden. Picture: SSPStansted Airport's new restaurant The Camden. Picture: SSP (Image: Archant)

This is an increase of 7.4 percent on July of last year, despite airline industrial action, ongoing weather disruption and air traffic challenges across Europe throughout the month. The destination countries recording the largest growth in terms of passengers flown were Spain, France and Germany.

The busiest ever July at the airport helped boosted total passenger numbers for the past 12 months to just under 27 million, a 7.3 per cent increase on the previous year.

July was also a busy month for cargo traffic, with more than 22,000 tonnes of goods passing through the dedicated cargo facilities, an increase of 4.5 per cent on July 2017. This brings the rolling 12-month total to nearly 262,000 tonnes.

This year Stansted has introduced a number of improvements including recruiting more security staff, the introduction of new Airport Ambassador roles, creating more check-in desks, improved access to the forecourt and the opening of a new 350 seat restaurant,‘The Camden.’

Chief executive of Stansted Airport Ken O’Toole said: “We always work hard to ensure that going into the peak season our passengers have the best possible service. Over the next five years we are investing £600m in transforming the airport experience for passengers, the main elements of which will be the construction of a new arrivals terminal, a re-vamp of the existing terminal, upgrades to the baggage system and more car parking spaces.”

Stansted aims to deliver 50 percent of London’s expected passenger growth over the next decade and has applied for permission to raise the number of passengers it serves to 43 million a year - “with a firm commitment to do so without any additional flights or noise impacts beyond our current permissions,” added Mr O’Toole.