Edinburgh Airport has busiest ever month

The airport saw 776,300 passengers go through its doors, airport operator BAA said.

Edinburgh's numbers soared 43.9 per cent on April last year, Glasgow increased 27.1 per cent with 512,700 passengers and Aberdeen was up 33.2 per cent with 247,100.

In total, more than 1.5 million people used the BAA airports in Scotland during the month.

Overall, BAA's six UK airports handled 9.1 million passengers in April 2011 - more than 31 per cent up on the April 2010 total which was badly affected by the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud crisis.

Heathrow, Britain's biggest airport in west London, also had its busiest-ever April last month and handled more than 5.8 million passengers.

The numbers were boosted by the Easter holiday season falling entirely in April this year and by the extra bank holiday for the royal wedding.

A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said: "We've had our busiest April and a lot of that has been down to the Easter holiday and the way the holidays fell. However, that aside, we've added 20 new flights this year so the choice from Edinburgh is greater than last year and passengers are taking advantage of that.

"We were recently voted in the top five in Europe for customer service and we are getting better all the time. We want to give passengers the best choice of routes and excellent customer service and we are constantly trying to do that."

Colin Matthews, chief executive of BAA, said: "I am delighted that more passengers departed on time from Heathrow than ever before. These figures reflect the results of our 1 billion annual investment and the commitment of 77,000 staff from 320 companies who work at the airport to improve the experience of our passengers."