London’s Heathrow Airport sets August record as runway ruling nears

LONDON (Reuters) – London’s Heathrow Airport, which is battling Gatwick for government approval for an extra runway, said it handled a record 7.34 million passengers in August, with more flying to the Middle East and Latin America.

Heathrow operates at about 98 percent capacity and struggles to add new flights. The British government is expected to rule in the coming weeks on whether to build a third runway at Heathrow or its rival Gatwick after a drawn-out process.

Europe’s busiest airport said numbers grew 0.1% compared with the previous year, showing there was no dip in traffic following Britain’s June vote to leave the European Union.

Heathrow has argued that Britain’s vote to leave the EU makes it more important that it secures approval to expand, enabling it to build more routes with trading nations. Gatwick says it can build a new runway at a lower cost and with less environmental impact.

Heathrow said passenger traffic rose 9.1% to the Middle East, 5.8% to Latin America and 5.1% to East Asia year-on-year in August, helped by increased use of larger aircraft.

Passenger growth to these countries outweighed falls on internal flights in Britain and to North America and Africa, it said.

The airport, whose biggest shareholder is Spanish infrastructure firm Ferrovial, said passenger volumes were up 0.7% in the first eight months of 2016, compared with the same period last year.

Heathrow said cargo traffic to emerging markets rose 5.7% to the Middle East, 12% to Latin America and 3.7% to East Asia, supporting its case for a new runway.

“We can get exporters, large and small, from all across Britain connected to the growing markets of the world, and it is urgent that we get on with it,” Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said in a statement.